LIBRARY
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
SANTA BARBARA
PRESENTED BY
MISS PEARL CHASE
EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
ESSAYS
THE ESSAYS OF ELIA
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
AUGUSTINE BIRRELL
THE PUBLISHERS OF €F81^3^^0^S
LIB'l^'JQ^ WILL BE PLEASED TO SEND
FREELY TO ALL APPLICANTS A LIST
OF THE PUBLISHED AND PROJECTED
VOLUMES TO BE COMPRISED UNDER
THE FOLLOWING THIRTEEN HEADINGS:
TRAVEL ^ SCIENCE -^ FICTION
THEOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY
HISTORY ^ CLASSICAL
FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
ESSAYS * ORATORY
POETRY & DRAMA
BIOGRAPHY
REFERENCE
ROMANCE
<%\r/1'^
<^e<
IN FOUR STYLES OF BINDING: CLOTH,
FLAT BACK, COLOURED TOP; LEATHER,
ROUND CORNERS, GILT TOP; LIBRARY
BINDING IN CLOTH, & QUARTER PIGSKIN
London: J. M. DENT & SONS, Ltd.
New York: E. P. BUTTON & CO.
OF ELIA®
6XCHARI^5
I5AAA.B (B ^
: LONDON ^ TORONTO
^JMDENT&SONS,^^^
IlTD. tt? NEWYORKI
EPDUTTON &CO
11
First Issue of this Edition . January 1906
Reprintkd August \9QQ; June l^ai;
October 1908 ; December 1909:
Ju7iel9U; July 191S;
May 1915
' \
^l5
CONTENTS
Introduction by Augustine Birrell ,
THE ESSAYS OF ELIA
The South-Sea House
Oxford in the Vacation
Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years
The Two Races of Men-
New Year's Eve
Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist .
A Chapter on Ears
All Fools' Day
A Quakers' Meeting
The Old and the New Schoolmaster
V^alentine's Day
Imperfect Sympathies
Witches, and other Night-fears
My Relations
Mackery End, in Hertfordshire
Modern Gallantry
The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple
Grace before Meat
My First Play
Dream-Children : A Reverie
Distant Correspondents
The Praise of Chimney-sweepers .
A Complaint of the Decay of Beggars
Metropolis
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig .
vii
Ago
PAG*:
ix
Contents
A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviovr of
Marrikd People ....
On Some of the Old Actors
On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century
On the Acting of Munden
LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA
Preface — By a Friend of the late Elia
BlAKESMOOR in H SHIRE
Poor Relations
Stage Illusion
To the Shade of Elliston
Ellistoniana
Detached Thoughts on Books and Ri
The Old Margate Hoy
The Convalescent .
Sanity of True Genius
Captain .Jackson
The Superannuated Man
The Genteel Style in Writing
Barbara S
The Tombs in the Abbey .
Amicus Redivivus
Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney
Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago
Barrenness of the Imaginative Faculty in the
Productions of Modern Art .
Rejoicings upon the New Year's Coming of Age
The Wedding ....
The Child Angel ....
Old China .....
Confessions of a Drunkard
viii
148
154
165
^73
177
180
184
191
194
196
201
207
215
219
222
226
233
237
242
244
249
256
263
274
279
284
287
292
Contents
PAGE
Popular Fallacies —
I. That a Bully is always a Coward . . 300
II. That Ill-gotten Gain never Prospers. . 301
III. That a Man must not laugh at his own Jest . 302
IV. That such a one Shows his Breeding — That
it is easy to Perceive he is no Gentleman 302
V. That the Poor copy the Vices of the Rich . 303
VI. That Enough is as Good as a Feast . . 304
VII. Of Two Disputants, the Warmest is generally
in the Wrong .... 305
VIII. That Verbal Allusions are not Wit, because
they will not bear a Translation . . 306
IX. That the Worst Puns are the Best . . 307
X. That Handsome is that Handsome Does . 309
XI. That we must not look a Gift-Horse in the
Mouth . . . . .311
XII. That Home is Home though it is never so
Homely . . . .313
XIII. That You must Love Me and Love my Dog 317
XIV. That we should Rise with the Lark . .320
XV. That we should Lie Down with the Lamb . 323
XVI. That a Sulky Temper is a Misfortune . 324
IX
INTRODUCTION
No apology is needed, and certainly no preface is required,
for or to another edition of "The Essays of Elia." They
have, to use their author's own words, joined the class of
"perpetually self-reproductive volumes, Great Nature's
Stereotypes." All that an editor of them has to do is to see
that work so delicate, so conscientious, so elaborate, is
neither insulted with bad type or ill-tempered paper, nor
injured by careless printing. Having done this, he has
done his duty. There is no need to praise what all the
world praises. Sometimes (it is just possible) an author
may slip his hold on men's fancies and fall into a state of
neglect, and, so far as human memories are concerned, of
ruinous decay, which yet may be removed, and the author's
fame judiciously restored by the kindly enthusiasm of some
critic, at whose bidding we turn to the forgotten volumes,
and try to make up for past neglect by present rapture.
But this (it must be owned) is rare. There are, indeed,
more discoverers than discoveries ; more bold travellers
than new continents ; more critics dinning the air with their
joyful shouts over forgotten poets and disused dramatists
than there prove to be poets and dramatists whom it is
good to remember, or possible to use. These recovered
creatures lead but a blinking kind of existence for a very
short time, and then, even though their works may have
been reprinted on Whatman paper, sink back into oblivion,
and rest for ever on the shelves of that great library, the
pride of Limbo, which is made up of the books that no
man can read, even though he were to be paid for doing so.
This repose is not unkindly. An author who is entirely,
forgotten is, at all events, never mispraised. Nothing, we
may feel well assured, could cause the Author of the
" Essays of Elia " more genuine annoyance than to be
clumsily praised, or raised with shouting to a higher pedestal
xi
Introduction
than the one in the possession of which his own ripe
judgment could confirm him. And yet, if we are not to
praise " The Essays of Eha," what is there for us to do ?
And who can insure us against doing so clumsily? Happily
it is not necessary to praise them at all.
The lives of authors, if only written with a decent
measure of truthfulness and insight, are, generally speaking,
better reading than their works. It would be hard to ex-
plain why the lives of men so querulous, so affected, so
centred in self, so averse to the probing of criticism, so
blind to the smallness of their fame as most authors stand
revealed in their biographies and letters to have been,
should yet be so incessantly interesting. They succeed
one another quickly enough — these biographies; doing
each one of them its bit of iconoclastic work : yet the
reader never tires of them, nor, unless he is very young,
does he wreak an empty wrath upon the fragments of an-
other broken idol. Far otherwise : he picks up the pieces
reverently, and remembering how hard and self-engrossing
is the labour of carrying out any high plan of literary ex-
cellence, how furious the fever occasioned by the thought
of perfection, hov/ hot the hell of failure, — puts them care-
fully away, and thanks God his mother bore him as destitute
of genius as of clothing.
But none the less we pine after the ideal. We want our
favourite authors to be our best-loved men. Smashing idols
is an irreverent occupation endurable only in our wilder
hours. A time comes in most men's lives when the bell
rings for prayer, and unhappy are they who, when it does,
have nowhere to carry their heart's supplications.
It is, therefore, a pleasant thing when we find ourselves
saying of Charles Lamb, that it is impossible to know
whether we most admire the author, or love the man. The
imaginary Elia, sitting by the side of his Cousin Bridget,
playing sick whist, whilst the pipkin which was to prepare
a gentle lenitive for his foot is bubbling in the fire," and as
I do not much relish appliances, there it should ever bubble
xii
Introduction
— Bridget and I should be tor ever playing," makes a
picture which will never need retouching ; but when we
read in the " Life and Letters " how reality outdoes imagin-
ation, and learn that the pen of Elia, so wisely human, so
sweetly melancholy, told only but a few of the secrets of a
brave heart and an unselfish Hfe, we feel we have saved
something out of the wreck.
Lamb, like his own child-angel, was "to know weakness,
and reliance, and the shadow of human imbecility." He
went with a lame gait. He used to get drunk somewhat
too frequently. Let the fact be stated in all its deformity
— he was too fond of gin-and-water. He once gave a lady
the welcome assurance that he never got drunk twice in
the same house. Failing all evidence to the contrary,
we are bound to believe this to be true. It is a mitigat-
ing circumstance. Wordsworth's boundless self-conceit,
Coleridge's maddening infirmity of purpose, Hazlitt's
petulance, De Quincey's spitefulness, knew no such self-
denying ordinance. Lamb was also a too inveterate
punster, and sometimes, it may be, pushed a jest, or baited
a bore, beyond the limits of becoming mirth. When we
have said these things against Lamb we have said all.
Pale Malice, speckled Jealousy, may now be invited to
search the records of his life, to probe his motives, to read
his private letters, to pry into his desk, to dissect his
character. Baffled, beaten, and disappointed, they fall
back. An occasional intoxication which hurt no one but
himself, which blinded him to no duty, which led him into
no extravagance, which in no way interfered with the
soundness of his judgment, the charity of his heart, or the
independence of his life, and a shower of bad puns —
behold the faults of Elia! His virtues — noble, manly,
gentle — are strewn over every page of his life, and may be
read in every letter he ever wrote.
Charles Lamb was born in Crown Office Row in the
Temple, on the iSth of February, 1775. His father, John
Lamb, was a barrister's clerk. The lots of barristers'
xiii
Introduction
clerks vary as widely as the habits of their employers.
Some make fortunes for themselves ; others only tea
for their masters. Their success in life is not wholly
dependent upon their own exertions. Rewarded as they
are by a kind of parasitical fee growing out of those paid to
the barrister they serve, they wax or wane — grow fat or
lean along with their chief. Theirs is thus a double
dependence. From a herd of the newly-called, how is the
fledgling clerk to single out a Scott, a Palmer, or a Cairns?
John Lamb was clerk to Mr. Samuel Salt, who, albeit a
Bencher of his Inn, does not seem ever to have enjoyed, if
that be the right word, a practice in the Courts. You may
search the Law Reports of his period in vain for his name.
The duties of John Lamb were rather those of a private
secretary, or confidential upper servant, than of a barrister's
clerk, properly so called. He collected his masters
dividends — a more gentlemanlike occupation than dunning
attorneys for fees, marked but not paid. Salt was a man of
ample fortune and of kind heart. He is immortalised in
the Essay on " Some of the Old Benchers of the Inner
Temple." It was he who procured for Charles a nomina-
tion to Christ's Hospital, whither the boy proceeded on the
9th of October, 1782, and where he remained until
November, 1789, when he left school for good, being then
only in his fifteenth year. At Christ's Lamb received a
purely classical education of the old-fashioned type. " In
everything that relates to science,''^ so he writes with obvious
truthfulness, "I am a whole encyclopaedia behind the rest
of the world. I should scarcely have cut a figure amongst
the franklins or country gentlemen in King John's days.
I know less geography than a schoolboy of six weeks'
standing. To me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic as
Arrowsmith. I do not know whereabout Africa merges
into Asia; whether Ethiopia lies in one or other of those
great divisions ; nor can form the remotest conjecture of the
position of New South Wales or Van Dieman's Land." A
civil servant of to-day could hardly afford to make such
Introduction
pleasant confessions. No boy ever profited more, or lost
less, by an old-fashioned education than Lamb. His head,
so he tells us, had not many mansions, nor spacious, but
he had imagination, taste, and spirit, and he imbibed the
old humanities at every pore. He never could have written
"The Essays of Elia," or anything like them, had he been
robbed of the birthright of every man of letters. He is
not a cheap and easy author. Leaving school as he did
before he was fifteen, he never proceeded beyond the
vestibules of the ancient learning ; and this, perhaps, was
also well. His stutter saved him from the Universities, and
he was thus enabled through life to preserve a romantic
attachment for these seminaries of sound learning and true
religion. Literature has no reason to deplore that Lamb
never, save in his imagination, proceeded a Master of Arts.
Some portion — it would be impossible to say what — of his
charm proceeds from the fact of his having been a lettered
clerk in the mercantile rather than the ecclesiastical sense
of the term. He has thus become the patron saint, the
inspiring example, of those whom fate, perhaps not so un-
kind as she seems, has condemned to know "the irksome
confinement of an office," and who have left to them but
the shreds and patches of the day for the pursuits in which
their souls rejoice.
After leaving Christ's, Lamb spent a little more than
two years in the South Sea House, where his elder and
only brother John had a clerkship; but in April, 1792,
through the influence probably of Mr. Salt, he obtained a
place in the Accountant's Office of the East India Com-
pany, at whose desks he sat until 1825, when, to use his
own celebrated phrase, he went home — for ever. His
salary went on slowly increasing from something under
^100 to ;^6oo a year. Apart from the old and probably
fictitious story about his coming late and going home
proportionately early, there is no reason to suppose that
Lamb was otherwise than an efficient public servant, as
that class of person goes. He did no more than was ex-
XV
Introduction
pected of him, and had no scruples about conducting his
private correspondence on office paper. He wrote a very
clear hand, and was in all business matters a precise and
punctual person. His code of honour was the highest, and
through life he maintained a curious and passionate hatred
of bankrupts.
He had been three years in the service of the Company
when the great tragedy — Elizabethan in its horror — of his
life befell him. Old John Lamb and his wife, their
daughter Mary, an aunt, and Charles, were living huddled
together in an obscure lodging in Little Queen Street,
Holborn. An exceedingly ugly church now stands upon
the site of the houses. Mary Lamb, who was ten years
her younger brother's senior, was a dressmaker on a small
scale. She always had what her mother, who does not
seem greatly to have cared for her, called "moithered"
brains, and on this fateful day, the 23rd of September,
1796, just before dinner, she seized a case-knife which was
lying on the table, and pursued a little girl, her apprentice,
round the room, hurled about the dinner-forks, and finally
stabbed her moth t to the heart. When Charles came
into the room, and snatched the knife out of her hand, it
was to find his aunt lying apparently dying, his father with
a wound on his forehead, and his mother a murdered
corpse. He was then twenty-one years of age, and had
spent some weeks of this very year in the Hoxton Lunatic
Asylum. His elder brother John, who had a comfortable
place in the South Sea House, did nothing but look after
his own leg, which one is thankful to believe gave him a
good deal of pain. The whole weight of the family fell
upon Charles. His love for his sister manifested itself in
his determination that as soon as possible she should be
released from confinement and live at home, he under-
taking ever to be on the watch for the fits of frenzy he was
assured only too truthfully would necessarily be recurrent.
For his father and his aunt, so long as they lived, he
maintained a home. Poor Mary in her asylum was often
xvi
Introduction
heard to say that she had one brother who wished her to
remain all her days in a madhouse, but another who would
not have it so. Charles succeeded in obtaining her dis-
charge upon entering into a solemn undertaking to take
care of her for ever thereafter. At first he provided
lodgings for her at Hackney, and spent all his Sundays
and holidays with her, but soon after he took her to live
with him altogether. Mr. Procter (Barry Cornwall), from
whose account the above facts are taken in their entirety,
says : " Whenever the approach of one of her fits of in-
sanity was announced by some irritability or change of
manner, he would take her under his arm to Hoxton
Asylum. It was very affecting to encounter the young
brother and sister walking together (weeping) on this
painful errand, Mary herself, although sad, very conscious
of the necessity of a temporary separation from her only
friend. They used to carry a strait waistcoat with
them."
These terrible events for a time greatly quickened the
religious side of Lamb's character. His letters to Cole-
ridge are severe, ascetical. He forswore poetry and
amusements, even such as were in the reach of a poor boy
of twenty-one maintaining a household on an income of
;^i8o. This wore off, and Lamb became in men's hasty
judgments one of the profane — a trifler, a jester. Carlyle,
we know only too well, met him once, and dismissed him
with a sulphureous snort. My belief is that Lamb, feeling
his own mental infirmity, and aware of the fearful life-long
strain to which he was to be subjected, took refuge in
trifles seriously, and played the fool in order to remain
sane.
For many long years Charles and Mary Lamb lived
together on narrow means and humble surroundings.
Friends indeed they had — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hazlitt,
Manning, Rickman, Barton, Burney, Carey — of whom
anyone might be proud. Their poverty was of the noble
order. In manly independence he towers above his
xvii
Introduction
contemporaries. He hated a close bargain almost as much
as he did a bankrupt. Prudent and saving, he could be
generous and (as it is called) princely when occasion arose.
He was ever a helper, seldom one of the helped. Both he
and his sister eked out their slender means by literary
work, humble in design, but honest in accomplishment.
Save for the newspapers, to which Charles contributed
doleful jests, they wrote nothing save their best.
In 1818, when Lamb's poetry and prose was collected
and dignified, much to his amusement, with the title
" Works," he became more widely known, and was recog-
nised, by at all events a few, as a man with a gift. In
1820 "The London Magazine " was established, and in its
columns first appeared "The Essays of Elia." In 1823
the first series appeared in a separate volume, and ten
years later the last essays.
The joint lives of Charles and Mary Lamb are best read
in the former's letters, though Canon Ainger's "Life"
should be kept by their side.
It was the wish of both that Charles should be the
survivor ; he would thus have seen his task complete. But
it was not to be. He died at Edmonton on the 27th
of December, 1834 ; Mary lived on till the 20th of May,
1847, — weary years, spent for the most part under the care
of a nurse, and with but a "twilight of consciousness."
Lamb had saved ;^20oo, which, after his sister's life-interest
ceased, was vested in trustees for the benefit of Mrs.
Moxon, whom Mary and he had in a kind of way adopted.
In this edition I have followed the text of the two
original editions of the Essays. The spelling is often
quaint, sometimes wrong, but always Lamb's, and therefore
better than anybody else's.
AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.
Introduction
The following is a list of the works of Charles Lamb : —
Poems on Various Subjects, by S. T. Coleridge, late of
Jesus College, Cambridge, 1796, contains four sonnets
by Lamb, signed " C L., " referred to by Coleridge
in his preface as by Mr Charles Lamb of the India
House; Poems, by S T. Coleridge, 2nd Edition, to
which are now added Poems by Charles Lamb and
Charles Lloyd, 1797.
Blank Verse by Charles Lloyd and Charles Lamb, 1798;
A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret,
1798 ; John Woodvil, a Tragedy, 1802 ; Mrs Leicester's
School, 1807, by Charles and Mary Lamb; Tales from
Shakespeare, 1807; The Adventures of Ulysses, 1808
[B. M. 1810?] ; Specimens of English Dramatic Poets,
1808 ; Poetry for Children : Prince Dorus, 181 1 ; The
Works of Charles Lamb 2 vols., 1818; Elia Essays,
1823; Album Verses, 1830; Satan in Search of a
Wife, 1831 ; The Last Essays of Elia, 1833.
Works, 2 vols. (C. & J. Olliver), 1818; Works (E. Moxon),
1840, 1859, 1870; Works (edited and prefaced by R.
H. Shepherd), 1875. Works (edited with biographical
introduction and notes by C. Kent), 1876; Life (by
Sir T. N. Talfourd), Letters, and Writings, 6 vols. (E.
Moxon & Co.), 1876; Life (by Sir. T. N. Talfourd),
Letters, and Writings (edited by Percy Fitzgerald),
The Temple Edition (printed from the stereotype
plates of Moxon's Edition), 6 vols., 1895 j Life and
Works, introduction and notes by A. Ainger 12 vols.,
1 899- 1 900; Works, edited by W. Macdonald, 1903.
XIX
THE ESSAYS OF ELIA
THE SOUTH-SEA HOUSE.
Reader, in thy passage from the Bank — where thou hast
been receiving thy half-yearly dividends (supposing thou
art a lean annuitant like myself) — to the Flower Pot, to
secure a place for Dalston, or Shacklewell, or some other
thy suburban retreat northerly, — didst thou never observe
a melancholy looking, handsome, brick and stone edifice,
to the left — where Threadneedle Street abuts upon Bishops-
gate? I dare say thou hast often admired its magnificent
portals ever gaping wide, and disclosing to view a grave
court, with cloisters, and pillars, with few or no traces of
goers-in or comers-out — a desolation something like
Balclutha's.'
This was once a house of trade, — a centre of busy
interests. The throng of merchants was here — the quick
pulse of gain — and here some forms of business are still
kept up, though the soul be long since fled. Here are still
to be seen stately porticos ; imposing staircases ; offices
roomy as the state apartments in palaces — deserted, or
thinly peopled with a few straggling clerks ; the still more
sacred interiors of court and committee rooms, with vener-
able faces of beadles, door-keepers — directors seated in form
on solemn days (to proclaim a dead dividend) at long worm-
eaten tables, that have been mahogany, with tarnished gilt-
leather coverings, supporting massy silver inkstands long
since dry ; — the oaken wainscots hung with pictures of
deceased governors and sub-governors, of Queen Anne, and
the two first monarchs of the Brunswick dynasty; — huge
charts, which subsequent discoveries have antiquated; —
dusty maps of Mexico, dim as dreams, — and soundings of
the Bay of Panama ! — The long passages hung with buckets,
appended, in idle row, to walls, whose substance might
' " I passed by the walls of Balclutha, and they were desolate."
OSSIAN.
The Essays of Elia
defy any, short of the last, conflagration : — with vast ranges
of cellarage under all, where dollars and pieces of eight once
lay, an "unsunned heap," for Mammon to have solaced his
solitary heart withal, — long since dissipated, or scattered
into air at the blast of the breaking of that famous
Bubble.
Such is the South-Sea House. At least, such it was
forty years ago, when I knew it, — a magnificent relic ! What
alterations may have been made in it since, I have had no
opportunities of verifying. Time, I take for granted, has
not freshened it. No wind has resuscitated the face of the
sleeping waters. A thicker crust by this time stagnates
upon it. The moths, that were then battening upon its
obsolete ledgers and day-books, have rested from their
depredations, but other light generations have succeeded,
making fine fretwork among their single and double entries.
Layers of dust have accumulated (a superfoetation of dirt !)
upon the old layers, that seldom used to be disturbed, save
by some curious finger, now and then, inquisitive to explore
the mode of book-keeping in Queen Anne's reign ; or, with
less hallowed curiosity, seeking to unveil some of the
mysteries of that tremendous hoax, whose extent the petty
peculators of our day look back upon with the same expres-
sion of incredulous admiration, and hopeless ambition of
rivalry, as would become the puny face of modern con-
spiracy contemplating the Titan size of Vaux's superhuman
plot.
Peace to the manes of the Bubble ! Silence and
destitution are upon thy walls, proud house, for a
memorial !
Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and
living commerce, — amid the fret and fever of speculation —
with the Bank, and the 'Change, and the India-house about
thee, in the hey-day of present prosperity, with their
important faces, as it were, insulting thee, their poor
neighbour out of business — to the idle and merely contempla-
tive,— to such as me, old house ! there is a charm in thy
quiet : — a cessation — a coolness from business — an indol-
ence almost cloistral — which is delightful ! With what
reverence have I paced thy great bare rooms and courts at
eventide ! They spoke of the past : — the shade of some
dead accountant, with visionary pen in ear, woiild flit by
me, stiff as in life. Living accounts and accountants puzzle
2
The South-Sea House
me. I have no skill in figuring. But thy great dead tomes,
which scarce three degenerate clerks of the present day
could lift from their enshrining shelves — with their old
fantastic flourishes, and decorative rubric interlacings —
their sums in triple columniations, set down with formal
superfluity of cyphers — with pious sentences at the begin-
ning, without which our religious ancestors never ventured
to open a book of business, or bill of lading — the costly
vellum covers of some of them almost persuading us that
we are got into some better library^ — are very agreeable and
edifying spectacles. I can look upon these defunct
dragons with complacency. Thy heavy, odd-shaped
ivory-handled penknives (our ancestors had everything on
a larger scale than we have hearts for) are as good as any
thing from Herculaneum. The pounce-boxes of our days
have gone retrograde.
The very clerks which I remember in the South-Sea
House — I speak of forty years back — had an air very
different from those in the public offices that I have had
to do with since. They partook of the genius of the place !
They were mostly (for the establishment did not admit
of superfluous salaries) bachelors. Generally (for they had
not much to do) persons of a curious and speculative turn
of mind. Old-fashioned, for a reason mentioned before.
Humorists, for they were of all descriptions ; and, not
having been brought together in early life (which has a
tendency to assimilate the members of corporate bodies to
each other), but, for the most part, placed in this house in
ripe or middle age, they necessarily carried into it their
separate habits and oddities, unqualified, if I may so
speak, as into a common stock. Hence they formed a
sort of Noah's ark. Odd fishes. A lay -monastery.
Domestic retainers in a great house, kept more for show
than use. Yet pleasant fellows, full of chat — and not a
few among them had arrived at considerable proficiency
on the German flute.
The cashier at that time was one Evans, a Cambro-
Briton. He had something of the choleric complexion of
his countrymen stamped on his visage, but was a worthy
sensible man at bottom. He wore his hair, to the last,
powdered and frizzed out, in the fashion which I remember
to have seen in caricatures of what were termed, in my
young days, Maccaronies. He was the last of that race of
3
The Essays of Elia
beaux. Melancholy as a gib-cat over his counter all the
forenoon, I think I see him, making up his cash (as they
call it) with tremulous fingers, as if he feared every one
about him was a defaulter ; in his hypochondry ready to
imagine himself one; haunted, at least, with the idea of
the possibility of his becoming one : his tristful visage
clearing up a little over his roast neck of veal at Anderton's
at two (where his picture still hangs, taken a little before
his death by desire of the master of the coffee-house, which
he had frequented for the last five-and-twenty years), but
not attaining the meridian of its animation till evening
brought on the hour of tea and visiting. The simultaneous
sound of his well-known rap at the door with the stroke of
the clock announcing six, was a topic of never-failing mirth
in the families which this dear old bachelor gladdened with
his presence. Then was his forte, his glorified hour !
How would he chirp, and expand, over a muffin ! How
would he dilate into secret history ! His countryman.
Pennant himself, in particular, could not be more eloquent
than he in relation to old and new London — the site ot
old theatres, churches, streets gone to decay — where
Rosomond's pond stood — the Mulberry Gardens — and the
Conduit in Cheap — with many a pleasant anecdote, derived
from paternal tradition, of those grotesque figures which
Hosarth has immortalised in his picture of Noon, — the
worthy descendants of those heroic confessors, who,
flying to this country, from the wrath of Louis the Four-
teenth and his dragoons, kept alive the flame of pure
religion in the sheltering obscurities of Hog Lane, and the
vicinity of the Seven Dials !
Deputy, under Evans, was Thomas Tame. He had the
air and stoop of a nobleman. You would have taken him
for one, had you met him in one of the passages leading to
Westminster Hall. By stoop, I mean that gentle bending
of the body forwards, which, in great men, must be
supposed to be the efifect of an habitual condescending
attention to the applications of their inferiors. While he
held you in converse, you felt strained to the height in the
colloquy. The conference over, you were at leisure to
smile at the comparative insignificance of the pretensions
which had just awed you. His intellect was of the
shallowest order. It did not reach to a saw or a proverb.
His mind was in its original state of white paper. A
4
The South-Sea House
sucking babe might have posed him. What was it then?
Was he rich ? Alas, no ! Thomas Tame was very poor.
Both he and his wife looked outwardly gentlefolks, when
I fear all was not well at all times within. She had a neat
meagre person, which it was evident she had not sinned in
over-pampering; but in its veins was noble blood. She
traced her descent, by some labyrinth of relationship,
which I never thoroughly understood, — much less can
explain with any heraldic certainty at this time of day, —
to the illustrious but unfortunate house of Derwentwater.
This was the secret of Thomas's stoop. This was the
thought — the sentiment — the bright solitary star of your
lives, — ye mild and happy pair, — which cheered you in the
night of intellect, and in the obscurity of your station !
This was to you instead of riches, instead of rank, instead
of glittering attainments : and it was worth them altogether.
You insulted none with it; but, while you wore it as a
piece of defensive armour only, no insult likewise could
reach you through it. Decus et solamen.
Of quite another stamp was the then accountant, John
Tipp. He neither pretended to high blood, nor in good
truth cared one fig about the matter. He " thought an
accountant the greatest character in the world, and himself
the greatest accountant in it." Yet John was not without
his hobby. The fiddle relieved his vacant hours. He sang,
certainly, with other notes than to the Orphean lyre. He
did, indeed, scream and scrape most abominably. His
fine suite of official rooms in Threadneedle Street, which,
without anything very substantial appended to them, were
enough to enlarge a man's notions of himself that lived in
them, (I know not who is the occupier of them now)
resounded fortnightly to the notes of a concert of "sweet
breasts," as our ancestors would have called them, culled
from club-rooms and orchestras — chorus singers — first and
second violoncellos — double basses — and clarionets — who
ate his cold mutton, and drank his punch, and praised his
ear. He sate like Lord Midas among them. But at the
desk Tipp was quite another sort of creature. Thence all
ideas, that were purely ornamental, were banished. You
could not speak of anything romantic without rebuke.
Politics were excluded. A newspaper was thought too
refined and abstracted. The whole duty of man consisted
in writing off dividend warrants. The striking of the annual
5
The Essays of Elia
balance in the company's books (which, perhaps, differed
from the balance of last year in the sum of ^£2^, is. 6d.)
occupied his days and nights for a month previous. Not
that Tipp was blind to the deadness of things (as they
call them in the city) in his beloved house, or did not sigh
for a return of the old stirring days when South Sea hopes
were young — (he was indeed equal to the wielding of any
the most intricate accounts of the most flourishing company
in these or those days) : — but to a genuine accountant the
difference of proceeds is as nothing. The fractional
farthing is as dear to his heart as the thousands which
stand before it. He is the true actor, who, whether his
part be a prince or a peasant, must act it with like intensity.
With Tipp form was everything. His life was formal.
His actions seemed ruled with a ruler. His pen was not
less erring than his heart. He made the best executor in
the world : he was plagued with incessant executorships
accordingly, which excited his spleen and soothed his
vanity in equal ratios. He would swear (for Tipp swore) at
the little orphans, whose rights he would guard with a
tenacity like the grasp of the dying hand, that commended
their interests to his protection. With all this there was
about him a sort of timidity — (his few enemies used to give
it a worse name) — a something which in reverence to the
dead, we will place, if you please, a little on this side of
the heroic. Nature certainly had been pleased to endow
John Tipp with a sufhcient measure of the principle of
self-preservation. There is a cowardice which we do not
despise, because it has nothing base or treacherous in its
elements ; it betrays itself, not you : it is mere tempera-
ment; the absence of the romantic and the enterprising;
it sees a lion in the way, and will not, with Fortinbras,
"greatly find quarrel in a straw," when some supposed
honour is at stake. Tipp never mounted the box of a
stage-coach in his life; or leaned against the rails of a
balcony ; or walked upon the ridge of a parapet ; or looked
down a precipice ; or let off a gun ; or went upon a water-
party ; or would willingly let you go if he could have helped
it : neither was it recorded of him, that for lucre, or for
intimidation, he ever forsook friend or principle.
Whom next shall we summon from the dusty dead, in
whom common qualities become uncommon ? Can I forget
thee, Henry Man, the wit, the polished man of letters, the
6
The South-Sea House
author^ of the South-Sea House ? who never enteredst thy
office in a morning or quittedst it in mid-day (what didst
tliou in an office ?) without some quirk that left a sting !
Thy gibes and thy jokes are now extinct, or survive but in
two forgotten volumes, which I had the good fortune to
rescue from a stall in Barbican, not three days ago, and
found thee terse, fresh, epigrammatic, as alive. Thy wit is
a little gone by in these fastidious days — thy topics are
staled by the " new-born gauds " of the time : — but great
thou used to be in Public Ledgers, and in Chronicles,
upon Chatham, and Shelburne, and Rockingham, and
Howe, and Burgoyne, and Clinton, and the war which
ended in the tearing from Great Britain her rebellious
colonies, — and Keppel, and Wilkes, and Sawbridge, and
Bull, and Dunning, and Pratt, and Richmond — and such
small politics.
A little less facetious, and a great deal more obstreperous,
was fine rattling, rattleheaded Plumer. He was descended,
— not in a right line, reader (for his lineal pretensions,
like his personal, favoured a little of the sinister bend) —
from the Plumers of Hertfordshire. So tradition gave him
out ; and certain family features not a little sanctioned the
opinion. Certainly old Walter Plumer (his reputed author)
had been a rake in his days, and visited much in Italy, and
had seen the world. He was uncle, bachelor-uncle, to the
fine old whig still living, who has represented the county in
so many successive parliaments, and has a fine old mansion
near Ware. Walter flourished in George the Second's days,
and was the same who was summoned before the House of
Commons about a business of franks, with the old Duchess
of Marlborough. You may read of it in Johnson's " Life of
Cave." Cave came off cleverly in that business. It is
certain our Plumer did nothing to discountenance the
rumour. He rather seemed pleased whenever it was,
with all gentleness, insinuated. But, besides his family
pretensions, Plumer was an engaging fellow, and sang
gloriously.
Not so sweetly sang Plumer as thou sangest, mild, child-
like, pastoral M ^ ; a flute's breathing less divinely
whispering than thy Arcadian melodies, when, in tones
worthy of Arden, thou didst chant that song sung by
Amiens to the banished Duke, which proclaims the winter
[' Maynard — hanged himself.]
7
The Essays of Elia
wind more lenient than for a man to be ungrateful. Thy
sire was old surly M , the unapproachable churchwarden
of Bishopsgate. He knew not what he did, when he begat
thee, like spring, gentle offspring of blustering winter : —
only unfortunate in thy ending, which should have been
mild, conciliatory, swan-like.
Much remains to sin.g. Many fantastic shapes rise up,
but they must be mine in private : — already I have fooled
the reader to the top of his bent ; — else could I omit that
strange creature Woollet, who existed in trying the question,
and bought litigations? — and still stranger, inimitable,
solemn Hepworth, from whose gravity Newton might have
deduced the law of gravitation. How profoundly would
he nib a pen — with what deliberation would he wet a
wafer !
But it is time to close — night's wheels are rattling fast
over me — it is proper to have done with this solemn
mockery.
Reader, what if I have been playing with thee all this
while — peradventure the very names, which I have
summoned up before thee, are fantastic — insubstantial —
like Henry Pimpernel, and old John Naps of Greece :
Be satisfied that something answering to them has had
a being. Their importance is from the past.
OXFORD IN THE VACATION.
Casting a preparatory glance at the bottom of this article —
as the wary connoisseur in prints, with cursory eye (wliich,
while it reads, seems as though it reads not), never fails to
consult the quis sculpsit in the corner, before he pronounces
some rare piece to be a Vivares, or a Woollet methinks
I hear you exclaim, Reader, who is Elia ?
Because in my last I tried to divert thee with some half-
forgotten humours of some old clerks defunct, in an old
house of business, long since gone to decay, doubtless you
have already set me down in your mind as one of the self-
same college a votary of the desk — a notched and
cropt scrivener — one that sucks his sustenance, as certain
sick people are said to do, through a quill.
Well, I do agnize something of the sort. I confess that
Oxford in the Vacation
it is my humour, my fancy — in the forepart of the day,
when the mind of your man of letters requires some re-
laxation— (and none better than such as at first sight seems
most abhorrent from his beloved studies) — to while away
some good hours of my time in the contemplation of indigos,
cottons, raw silks, piece-goods, flowered or otherwise.
In the first place * * * and then it sends you home
with such increased appetite to your books * * * * *
not to say, that your outside sheets, and waste wrappers of
foolscap, do receive into them, most kindly and naturally,
the impression of sonnets, epigrams, essays — so that the
very parings of a counting-house are, in some sort, the
settings up of an author. The enfranchised quill, that has
plodded all the morning among the cart rucks of figures and
cyphers, frisks and curvets so at its ease over the flowery
carpet-ground of a midnight dissertation. — It feels its pro-
motion. ♦ * * * * So that you see, upon the whole,
the literary dignity of £/ia is very little, if at all, compro-
mised in the condescension.
Not that, in my anxious detail of the many commodities
incidental to the life of a public office, I would be thought
blind to certain flaws, which a cunning carper might be able
to pick in this Joseph's vest. And here I must have leave,
in the fulness of my soul, to regret the abolition, and doing-
away-with altogether, of those consolatory interstices, and
sprinklings of freedom, through the four seasons, — the red-
letier days, now become, to all intents and purposes, dead-
letter days. There was Paul, and Stephen, and Barnabas —
Andrew and John, men famous in old times
— we were used to keep all their days holy, as long back as
I was at school at Christ's. I remember their effigies, by
the same token, in the old Basket Prayer Book. There
hung Peter in his uneasy posture holy Bartlemy in the
troublesome act of flaying, after the famous Marsyas by
Spagnoletti 1 honoured them all, and could almost
have wept the defalcation of Iscariot — so much did we love
to keep holy memories sacred : — only methought I a little
grudged at the coalition of the better Jude ■w'lih Simon —
clubbing (as it were) their sanctities together, to make up
one poor gaudy-day between them — as an economy un-
worthy of the dispensation.
These were bright visitations in a scholar's and a clerk's
9
The Essays of Elia
life — "far off their coming shone." — I was as good as an
almanac in those days. I could have told you such a
saint's-day falls out next week, or the week after. Perad-
venture the Epiphany, by some periodical infelicity, would,
once in six years, merge in a Sabbath. Now am I little
better than one of the profane. Let me not be thought to
arraign the wisdom of my civil superiors, who have judged
the further observation of these holy tides to be papistical,
superstitious. Only in a custom of such long standing,
methinks, if their Holinesses the Bishops had, in decency,
been first sounded but I am wading out of my depths.
I am not the man to decide the limits of civil and ecclesi-
astical authority 1 am plain Elia — no Selden, nor Arch-
bishop Usher — though at present in the thick of their books,
here in the heart of learning, under the shadow of the
mighty Bodley.
I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To
such a one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young
years of the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is
so pleasant, to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or
other of the Universities. Their vacation, too, at this time
of the year, falls in so pat with ou?-s. Here I can take my
walks unmolested, and fancy myself of what degree or
standing I please. I seem admitted ad eundem. I fetch
up past opportunities. I can rise at the chapel-bell, and
dream that it rings for me. In moods of humiHty I can be
a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock vein rises, I strut
a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, I proceed
Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much unlike
that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed
vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curlsy,
as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort.
I go about in black, which favours the notion. Only in
Christ Church reverend quadrangle I can be content to
pass for nothing short of a Seraphic Doctor.
The walks at these times are so much one's own, — the
tall trees of Christ's, the groves of Magdalen ! The halls
deserted, and with open doors, inviting one to slip in un-
perceived, and pay a devoir to some Founder, or noble or
royal Benefactress (that should have been ours) whose
portrait seems to smile upon their over-looked beadsman,
and to adopt me for their own. Then, to take a peep in
by the way at the butteries, and sculleries, redolent of
lO
Oxford in the Vacation
antique hospitality : the immense caves of kitchens, kitchen
fire-places, cordial recesses ; ovens whose first pies were
baked four centuries ago ; and spits which have cooked for
Chaucer ! Not the meanest minister among the dishes but
is hallowed to me through his imagination, and the Cook
goes forth a Manciple.
Antiquity ! thou wondrous charm, what art thou ? that,
being nothing, art every thing ! When thou werf, thou wert
not antiquity — then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter
antiquity^ as thou called'st it, to look back to with blind
veneration ; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune,
modern 1 What mystery lurks in this retroversion ? or what
half Januses ' are we, that cannot look forward with the
same idolatry with which we for ever revert ! the mighty
future is as nothing, being every thing ! the past is every
thing, being nothing!
What were thy dark ages? Surely the sun rose as
brightly then as now, and man got him to his work in the
morning. Why is it that we can never hear mention of
them without an accompanying feeling, as though a
palpable obscure had dimmed the face of things, and that
our ancestors wandered to and fro groping !
Above all thy rarities, old Oxenford, what do most arride
and solace me, are thy repositories of mouldering learning,
thy shelves
What a place to be in is an old library ! It seems as
though all the souls of all the writers that have bequeathed
their labours to these Bodleians, were reposing here, as in
some dormitory, or middle state. I do not want to handle,
to profane the leaves, their winding-sheets. I could as
soon dislodge a shade. I seem to inhale learning, walking
amid their foliage; and the odour of their old moth-
scented coverings is fragrant as the first bloom of those
sciential apples which grew amid the happy orchard.
Still less have I curiosity to disturb the elder repose of
MSS. Those variie Uctiones so tempting to the more
erudite palates, do but disturb and unsettle my faith. I
am no Herculanean raker. The credit of the three
witnesses might have slept unimpeached for me. I leave
these curiosities to Porson, and to G. D.^ — whom, by the
way, I found busy as a moth over some rotten archive,
'Januses of one face. — Sir Thomas Browne.
[* George Dyer.]
II
The Essays of Elia
rummaged out of some seldom-explored press, in a nook
at Oriel. With long poring, he is grown almost into a
book. He stood as passive as one by the side of the old
shelves, I longed to new-coat him in Russia, and assign
him his place. He might have mustered for a tall
Scapula.
D. is assiduous in his visits to these seats of learning.
No inconsiderable portion of his moderate fortune, I
apprehend, is consumed in journeys between them and
Clifford's Inn — where, like a dove on the asp's nest, he has
long taken up his unconscious abode, amid an incongruous
assembly of attorneys, attorneys' clerks, apparitors, pro-
moters, vermin of the law, among whom he sits, "in calm
and sinless peace." The fangs of the law pierce him not —
the winds of litigation blow over his humble chambers —
the hard sheriff's officer moves his hat as he passes — legal
nor illegal discourtesy touches him — none thinks of offering
violence or injustice to him — you would as soon " strike an
abstract idea."
D. has been engaged, he tells me, through a course of
laborious years, in an investigation into all curious matter
connected with the two Universities ; and has lately lit
upon a MS. collection of charters, relative to C , by
which he hopes to settle some disputed points — particularly
that long controversy between them as to priority of
foundation. The ardour with which he engages in these
liberal pursuits, I am afraid, has not met with all the
encouragement it deserved, either here, or at C . Your
caputs and heads of colleges, care less than any body
else about these questions. — Contented to suck the milky
fountains of their Alma Maters, without inquiring into the
venerable gentlewomen's years, they rather hold such
curiosities to be impertinent — unreverend. They have
their good glebe lands in manu, and care not much to rake
into the title-deeds. I gather at least so much from other
sources, for D. is not a man to complain.
D. started like an unbroke heifer, when I interrupted
him. A priori it was not very probable that we should
have met in Oriel. But D. would have done the same,
had I accosted him on the sudden in his own walks in
Clifford's Inn, or in the Temple. In addition to a pro-
vokin.( shortsightedness (the effect of late studies and
watchings at the midnight oil) D. is the most absent of
12
Oxford in the Vacation
men. He made a call the other morning at our friend'
M.'s in Bedford Square ; and, finding nobody at home,
was ushered into the hall, where, asking for pen and ink,
with great exactitude of purpose he enters me his name in
the book — which ordinarily lies about in such places, to
record the failures of the untimely or unfortunate visitor —
and takes his leave with many ceremonies, and professions
of regret. Some two or three hours after, his walking
destinies returned him into the same neighbourhood again,
and again the quiet image of the fire-side circle at Af.'s
Mrs. M. presiding at it like a Queen Lar, with pretty A. S.^
at her side striking irresistibly on his fancy, he makes
another call (forgetting that they were "certainly not to
return from the country before that day week ") and dis-
appointed a second time, inquires for pen and paper as
before : again the book is brought, and in the line just
above that in which he is about to print his second name
(his re-script) — his first name (scarce dry) looks out upon
him like another Sosia, or as if a man should suddenly
encounter his own duplicate ! — The effect may be conceived.
D. made many a good resolution against any such lapses
in future. I hope he will not keep them too rigorously.
For with G. D. — to be absent from the body, is some-
times (not to speak it profanely) to be present with the
Lord. At the very time when, personally encountering
thee, he passes on with no recognition or, being stopped,
starts like a thing surprised — at that moment, reader, he is
on Mount Tabor — or Parnassus — or co-sphered with Plato
— or, with Harrington, framing "immortal common-
wealths " — devising some plan of amelioration to thy
country, or thy species peradventure meditating some
individual kindness or courtesy, to be done to /^e ihyselfy
the returning consciousness of which made him to start so
guiltily at thy obtruded personal presence.
D. is delightful any where, but he is at the best in such
places as these. He cares not much for Bath. He is out
of his element at Buxton, at Scarborough, or Harrowgate.
The Cam and the Isis are to him " better than all the
waters of Damascus." On the Muses' hill he is happy,
and good, as one of the Shepherds on the Delectable
['Basil Montagu, Q.C.]
[^ Anne Skepper, daughter to Mrs, Montagu, afteiwards married to
B. W. Procter.]
13
The Essays of Elia
Mountains ; and when he goes about with you to show you
the halls and colleges, you think you have with you the
Interpreter at the House Beautiful.
CHRIST'S HOSPITAL FIVE AND THIRTY
YEARS AGO
In Mr. Lamb's "Works," published a year or two since, I
find a magnificent eulogy on my old school,' such as it
was, or now appears to him to have been, between the
years 1782 and 1789. It happens, very oddly, that my
own standing at Christ's was nearly corresponding with
his ; and, with all gratitude to him for his enthusiasm for
the cloisters, I think he has contrived to bring together
whatever can be said in praise of them, dropping all the
other side of the argument most ingeniously.
I remember L. at school; and can well recollect that he
had some peculiar advantages, which I and others of his
schoolffllows had not. His friends lived in town, and
were near at hand ; and he had the privilege of going to see
them, almost as often as he wished, through some invidious
distinction, which was denied to us. The present worthy
sub-treasurer to the Inner Temple can explain how that
happened. He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning,
while we were battening upon our quarter of a penny loaf —
our criig — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden
piggins, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was
poured from. Our Monday's milk porritch, blue and
tasteless, and the pease soup of Saturday, coarse and
choking, were enriched for him with a slice of "extra-
ordinary bread and butter," from the hot -loaf of the
Temple. The Wednesday's mess of millet, somewhat less
repugnant — (we had three banyan to four meat days in the
week) — was endeared to his palate with a lump of double-
refined, and a smack of ginger (to make it go down the
more glibly) or the fragrant cinnamon. In lieu of our
half-pickled Sundays, or quite fresh boiled beef on Thurs-
days (strong as caro equina), with detestable marigolds
floating in the pail to poison the broth — our scanty mutton
crags on Fridays — and rather more savoury, but grudging,
' Recollections of Christ's Hospital.
14
Christ's Hospital, etc.
portions of the same flesh, rotten-roasted or rare, on the
Tuesdays (the only dish which excited our appetites, and
disappointed our stomachs, in almost equal proportion) —
he had his hot plate of roast veal, or the more tempting
griskin (exotics unknown to our palates), cooked in the
paternal kitchen (a great thing), and brought him daily by
his maid or aunt ! I remember the good old relative (in
whom love forbade pride) squatting down upon some odd
stone in a by-nook of the cloisters, disclosing the viands (of
higher regale than those cates which the ravens ministered
to the Tishbite) ; and the contending passions of L. at the
unfolding. There was love for the bringer; shame for the
thing brought, and the manner of its bringing ; sympathy
for those who were too many to share in it ; and, at top
of all, hunger (eldest, strongest of the passions !) pre-
dominant, breaking down the stony fences of shame, and
awkwardness, and a troubling over-consciousness.
I was a poor friendless boy. My parents, and those
who should care for me, were far away. Those few ac-
quaintances of theirs, which they could reckon upon being
kind to me in the great city, after a little forced notice, which
they had the grace to take of me on my first arrival in
town, soon grew tired of my holiday visits. They seemed
to them to recur too often, though I thought them few
enough ; and, one after another, they all failed me, and I
felt myself alone among six hundred playmates.
O the cruelty of separating a poor lad from his early
homestead ! The yearnings which I used to have towards
it in those unfledged years ! How, in my dreams, would
my native town (far in the west) come back, with its
church, and trees, and faces ! How I would wake weep-
ing, and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet
Calne in Wiltshire !
To this late hour of my life, I trace impressions left by
the recollection of those friendless holidays. The long
warm days of summer never return but they bring with
them a gloom from the haunting memory of those ivhole-
day-leaves, when, by some strange arrangement, we were
turned out, for the live-long day, upon our own hands,
whether we had friends to go to, or none. I remember
those bathing excursions to the New River, which L.
recalls with such relish, better, I think, than he can —
for he was a home-seeking lad, and did not much care for
15
The Essays of Elia
such water-pastimes : — How merrily we would sally forth
into the fields; and strip under the first warmth of the
sun ; and wanton like young dace in the streams ; getting
us appetites for noon, which those of us that were penni-
less (our scanty morning crust long since exhausted) had
not the means of allaying — while the cattle, and the birds,
and the fishes, were at feed about us, and we had nothing
to satisfy our cravings — the very beauty of the day, and
the exercise of the pastime, and the sense of liberty, setting
a keener edge upon them ! — How faint and languid, finally
we would return, towards nightfall, to our desired morsel,
half-rejoicing, half-reluctant, that the hours of our uneasy
liberty had expired !
- It was worse in the days of winter, to go prowling about
the streets objectless — shivering at cold windows of
print-shops, to extract a little amusement ; or haply, as
a last resort, in the hope of a little novelty, to pay a
fifty-times repeated visit (where our individual faces should
be as well known to the warden as those of his own
charges) to the Lions in the Tower — to whose levee,
by courtesy immemorial, we had a prescriptive title to
admission.
L.'s governor (so we called the patron who presented us
to the foundation) lived in a manner under his paternal
roof. Any complaint which he had to make was sure of being
attended to. This was understood at Christ's, and was an
effectual screen to him against the severity of masters, or
worse tyranny of the monitors. The oppressions of these
young brutes are heart-sickening to call to recollection, I
have been called out of my bed, and ivaked for the purpose^
in the coldest winter ni:,hts — and this not once, but night
after night — in my shirt, to receive the discipline of a
leathern thong, with eleven other sufTerers, because it
pleased my callow overseer, when there has been any
talking heard after we were gone to bed, to make the six
last beds in the dormitory, where the youngest children of
us slept, answerable for an offence they neither dared to
commit, nor had the power to hinder. — The same execrable
tyranny drove the younger part of us from the fires, when
our feet were perishing with snow; and under the cruellest
penalties, forbade the indulgence of a drink of water, when
we lay in sleepless summer nights, fevered with the season,
and the day's sports.
I6
Christ's Hospital, etc.
There was one H ,' who, I learned, in after days, was
seen expiating some maturer offence in the hulks. (Do I
flatter myself in fancying that this might be the planter of
that name, who suffered at Nevis, I think, or St. Kitts,
some few years since ? My friend Tobin was the benevo-
lent instrument of bringing him to the gallows.) This petty
Nero actually branded a boy, who had offended him, with a
red-hot iron ; and nearly starved forty of us, with exacting
contributions, to the one half of our bread, to pamper a
young ass, which, incredible as it may seem, with the con-
nivance of the nurse's daughter (a young flame of his) he
had contrived to smuggle in, and keep upon the leads of the
ward, as they called our dormitories. This game went on
for better than a week, till the foolish beast, not able to
fare well but he must cry roast meat — happier than Caligula's
minion, could he have kept his own counsel — but, foolisher,
alas ! than any of his species in the fables — waxing fat, and
kicking, in the fulness of bread, one unlucky minute would
needs proclaim his good fortune to the world below; and,
laying out his simple throat, blew such a ram's horn blast,
as (toppling down the walls of his own Jericho) set conceal-
ment any longer at defiance. The client was dismissed,
with certain attentions, to Smithfield; but I never under-
stood that the patron underwent any censure on the
occasion. This was in the stewardship of L.'s admired Perry.
Under the same faci/e administration, can L. have for-
gotten the cool impunity with which the nurses used to
carry away openly, in open platters, for their own tables,
one out of two of every hot joint, which the careful matron
had been seeing scrupulously weighed out for our dinners?
These things were daily practised in that magnificent apart-
ment, which L. (grown connoisseur since, we presume)
praises so highly for the grand paintings " by Verrio, and
others," with which it is "hung round and adorned." But
the sight of sleek, well-fed blue-coat boys in pictures was, at
that time, I believe, little consolatory to him, or us, the
living ones, who saw the better part of our provisions
carried away before our faces by harpies ; and ourselves
reduced (with the Trojan in the hall of Dido)
"To feed our mind with idle portraiture."
L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to gags,
or the fat of fresh beef boiled ; and sets it down to some
[' Hodges.]
B 17
The Essays of Elia
superstition. But these unctuous morsels are never grateful
to young palates (children are universally fat-haters) and in
strong, coarse, boiled meats, ttnsaited, are detestable. A
gag eater in our time was equivalent to sl goul, and held in
equal detestation. suffered under the imputation.
" 'Twas said,
He ate strange fle,>h."
He was observed, after dinner, carefully to gather up the
remnants left at his table (not many, nor very choice
fragments, you may credit me) — and, in an especial manner,
these disreputable morsels, which he would convey away,
and secretly stow in the settle that stood at his bed-side.
None saw when he ate them. It was rumoared that he
privately devoured them in the night. He was watched,
but no traces of such midnight practices were discoverable.
Some reported, that, on leave-days, he had been seen to
carry out of the bounds a large blue check handkerchief,
full of something. This then must be the accursed thing.
Conjecture next was at work to imagine how he
could dispose of it. Some said he sold it to the beggars.
This belief generally prevailed. He went about moping.
None spake to him. No one would play with him. He
was excommunicated ; put out of the pale of the school.
He was too powerful a boy to be beaten, but he underwent
every mode of that negative punishment, which is more
grievous than many stripes. Still he persevered. At length
he was observed by two of his school-fellows, who were
determined to get at the secret, and had traced him one
leave-day for that purpose, to enter a large worn-out
building, such as there exist specimens of in Chancery Lane,
which are let out to various scales of pauperism with open
door, and a common staircase. After him they silently
slunk in, and followed by stealth up four flights, and saw
him tap at a poor wicket, which was opened by an aged
woman, meanly clad. Suspicion was now ripened into
certainty. The informers had secured their victim. They
had him in their toils. Accusation was formally preferred,
and retribution most signal was looked for. Mr. Hathaway,
the then steward (for this happened a little after my time),
with that patient sagacity which tempered all his conduct,
determined toinvestigate the matter, before he proceeded to
sentence. The result was, that the supposed mendicants,
]8
Christ's Hospital, etc.
the receivers or purchasers of the mysterious scraps, turned
out to be the parents of , an honest couple come to
decay, — whom this seasonable supply had, in all probability,
saved from mendicancy; and that this young stork, at the
expense of his own good name, had all this while been only
feeding the old birds ! — The governors on this occasion,
much to their honour, voted a present relief to the family
of , and presented him with a silver medal. The lesson
which the steward read upon rash judgment, on the
occasion of publicly delivering the medal to , I believe,
would not be lost upon his auditory. — I had left school
then, but I well remember . He was a tall, shambling
youth, with a cast in his eye, not at all calculated to con-
ciliate hostile prejudices. I have since seen him carrying
a baker's basket. I think I heard he did not do quite so
well by himself, as he had done by the old folks.
I was a hypochondriac lad; and the sight of a boy in
fetters, upon the day of my first putting on the blue clothes,
was not exactly fitted to assuage the natural terrors of
initiation. I was of tender years, barely turned of seven ;
and had only read of such things in books, or seen them
but in dreams. I was told he had run away. This was
the punishment for the first offence. — As a novice I was
soon after taken to see the dungeons. These were little,
square, Bedlam cells, where a boy could just lie at his
length upon straw and a blanket — a mattress, I think, was
afterwards substituted — with a peep of light, let in askance,
from a prison-orifice at top, barely enough to read by.
Here the poor boy was locked in by himself all day, with-
out sight of any but the porter who brought him his bread
and water — who might not speak to him ; — or of the beadle,
who came twice a week to call him out to receive his
periodical chastisement, which was almost welcome, be-
cause it separated him for a brief interval from solitude : —
and here he was shut up by himself of nights, out of the
reach of any sound, to suffer whatever horrors the weak
nerves, and superstition incident to his time of life, might
subject him to.' This was the penalty for the second
' One or two instances of lunacy, or attempted suicide, accordingly,
at length convinced the governors of the impolicy of this part of the
sentence, and the midnight torture to the spirits was dispensed with. —
This fancy of dungeons for children was a sprout of Howard's brain ;
for which (saving the reverence due to Holy Paul), methinks, I could
willingly spit upon his statue.
19
The Essays of Elia
offence. — Wouldst thou like, reader, to see what became
of him in the next degree?
The culprit, who had been a third time an offender,
and whose expulsion was at this time deemed irreversible,
was brought forth, as at some solemn auio da fe, arrayed
in uncouth and most appalling attire — all trace of his late
"watchet weeds" carefully effaced, he was exposed in a
jacket, resembling those which London lamplighters
formerly delighted in, with a cap of the same. The effect
of this divestiture was such as the ingenious devisers of it
could have anticipated. With his pale and frighted
features, it was as if some of those disfigurements in Dante
had st'ized upon him. In this disguisement he was brought
into the hall {LI' s favourite state-room), where awaited him
the whole number of his schoolfellows, whose joint lessons
and sports he was thenceforth to share no more ; the
awful presence of the steward, to be seen for the last time ;
of the executioner beadle, clad in his state robe for the
occasion ; and of two faces more, of direr import, because
never but in these extremities visible. These were
governors ; two of whom, by choice, or charter, were
always accustomed to officiate at these Ultima Supplicia ;
not to mitigate (so at least we understood it), but to enforce
the uttermost stripe. Old Bamber Gascoigne, and Peter
Aubert, I remember, were colleagues on one occasion,
when the beadle turning rnther pale, a glass of brandy was
ordered to prepare him for the mysteries. The scourging
was, after the old Roman fashion, long and stately. The
lictor accompanied the criminal quite round the hall. We
were generally too faint with attending to the previous dis-
gusting circumstances, to make accurate report with our
eyes of the degree of corporal suffering inflicted. Report,
of course, gave out the back knotty and livid. After
scourging, he was made over, in his San Benito, to his
friends, if he had any (but commonly such poor runagates
were friendless), or to his parish officer, who, to enhance
the effect of the scene, had his station allotted to him on the
outside of the hall gate.
These solemn pageantries were not played off so often
as to spoil the general mirth of the community. We had
plenty of exercise and recreation after school hours ; and,
for myself, I must confess, that I was never happier, th;in in
them. The Upper and Lower Grammar Schools were held
20
Christ's Hospital, etc.
in the same room ; and an imnginary line only divided
their bounds. Their character was as different as that of
the inhabitants on the two sides of the Pyrenees. The
Rev. James Boyer was the Upper Master : but the Rev.
Matthew Field presided over that portion of the apartment,
of which I had the good fortune to be a member. We
lived a life as careless as birds. We talked and did just
what we pleased, and nobody molested us. We carried an
accidence, or a grammar, for form ; but, for any trouble it
gave us, we might take two years in getting through the
verbs deponent, and another two in forgetting all that we
had learned about them. There was now and then the
formality of saying a lesson, but if you had not learned it,
a brush across the shoulders (just enough to disturb a Hy)
was the sole remonstrance. Field never used the rod ; and
in truth he wielded the cane with no great good will —
holding it "like a dancer." It looked in his hands rather
like an emblem than an instrument of authority ; and an
emblem, too, he was ashamed of. He was a good easy
man, that did not care to rufTle his own peace, nor perliaps
set any great consideration upon the value of juvenile time.
He came among us, now and then, but often stayed away
whole days from us ; and when he came, it made no
difference to us — he had his private room to retire to, the
short time he stayed, to be out of the sound of our noise.
Our mirth and uproar went on. We had classics of our
own, without being beholden to " insolent Greece or
haughty Rome," that passed current among us — Peter
Wilkins — the Adventures of the Hon. Capt. Robert Boyle
—the Fortunate Blue Coat Boy — and the like. Or we
cultivated a turn for mechanic or scientific operation ;
making little sun-dials of paper; or weaving those in-
genious parentheses, called cat-cradles ; or making dry peas
to dance upon the end of a tin pipe; or studying the art
military over that laudable game "French and English,"
and a hundred other such devices to pass away the time —
mixing the useful with the agreeable — aswould have madethe
souls of Rousseau and John Locke chuckle to have seen us.
Matthew Field belonged to that class of modest divines
who affect to mix in equal proportion the genf/e7nan, the
scholar, and the Christian ; but, I know not how, the first
ingredient is generally found to be the predominating dose
in the composition. He was engaged in gay parties, or
21
The Essays of Elia
with his courtly bow at some episcopal levee, when he
should have been attending upon us. He had for many
years the classical charge of a hundred children, during
the four or five first years of their education ; and his very
highest form seldom proceeded further than two or three
of the introductory fables of Phaedrus. How things were
suffered to go on thus, I cannot guess. Boyer, who was
the proper person to have remedied these abuses, always
affected, perhaps felt, a delicacy in interfering in a province
not strictly his own. I hare not been without my sus-
picions, that he was not altogether displeased at the
contrast we presented to his end of the school. We were
a sort of Helots to his young Spartans. He would some-
times, with ironic deference, send to borrow a rod of the
Under Master, and then, with Sardonic grin, observe to
one of his upper boys, "how neat and fresh the twigs
looked." While his pale students were battering their
brains over Xenophon and Plato, with a silence as deep as
that enjoined by the Samite, we were enjoying ourselves at
our ease in our little Goshen. We saw a little into the
secrets of his discipline, and the prospect did but the more
reconcile us to our lot. His thunders rolled innocuous for
us; his storms came near, but never touched us; contrary
to Gideon's miracle, while all around were drenched, our
fleece was dry.' His boys turned out the better scholars;
we, I suspect, have the advantage in temper. His pupils
cannot speak of him without something of terror allaying
their gratitude ; the remembrance of Field comes back
with all the soothing images of indolence, and summer
slumbers, and work like play, and innocent idleness, and
Elysian exemptions, and life itself a " playing holiday."
Though sufficiently removed from the jurisdiction of
Boyer, we were near enough (as I have said) to understand
a little of his system. We occasionally heard sounds of
the Ululanfes, and caught glances of Tartarus. B. was a
rabid pedant. His English style was cramped to barbarism.
His Easter anthems (for his duty obliged him to those
periodical flights) were grating as scrannel pipes. ^ — He
would laugh, ay, and heartily, but then it must be at
' Cowley.
^ In this and every thing B. was the antipodes of his co-adjutor.
While the former was digging his brains for crude anthems, worth a
pig-nut, F. would be recreating his gentlemanly fancy in the more
22
Christ's Hospital, etc.
Flaccus's quibble about Rex or at the tristis severitas in
vultu, or inspicere in patinas, of Terence — thin jests, which
at their first broaching could hardly have had vis enough
to move a Roman muscle. — He had two wigs, both pedantic,
but of different omen. The one serene, smiling, fresh
powdered, betokening a mild day. The other, an old
discoloured, unkempt, angry caxon, denoting frequent and
bloody execution. Woe to the school, when he made his
morning appearance in his passy, or passionate wig. No
comet expounded surer. — J. B. had a heavy hand. I have
known him double his knotty fist at a poor trembling child
(the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a "Sirrah,
do you presume to set your wits at me?" — Nothing was
more common than to see him make a headlong entry into
the schoolroom, from his inner recess, or library, and, with
turbulent eye, singling out a lad, roar out, " Od's my life,
Sirrah " (his favourite adjuration), "I have a great mind to
whip you," — then, with as sudden a retracting impulse,
fling back into his lair — and, after a cooling lapse of some
minutes (during which all but the culprit had totally
forgotten the context) drive headlong out again, piecing
out his imperfect sense, as if it had been some Devil's
Litany, with the expletory yell — "a«^/wiLL too.''^ — In his
gentler moods, when the rabidus furor was assuaged, he
had resort to an ingenious method, peculiar, for what I
have heard, to himself, of whipping the boy, and reading
the Debates, at the same time ; a paragraph, and a lash
between ; which in those times, when parliamentary oratory
was most at a height and flourishing in these realms, was
not calculated to impress the patient with a veneration for
the diffuser graces of rhetoric.
Once, and but once, the uplifted rod was known to fall
ineffectual from his hand — when droll squinting W
having been caught putting the inside of the master's desk
to a use for which the architect had clearly not designed it,
to justify himself, with great simplicity averred, that he did
not kfiow that the thing had been forewar7ied. This exquisite
irrecognition of any law antecedent to the oral ox declaratory
flowery walks of the Muses. A little dramatic effusion of his, under
the name of Vertumnus and Pomona, is not yet forgotten by the
chroniclers of that sort of literature. It was accepted by Garrick, but
the town did not give it their sanction. — B. used to say of it, in a way
of half-compliment, half-irony, that it was tto classical for representa-
tion.
23
The Essays of Elia
struck so irresistibly upon the fancy of all who heard it
(the pedagogue himseil not excepted) that remission was
unavoidable.
L. has given credit to B.'s great merits as an instructor.
Coleridge, in his literary life, has pronounced a more
intelligible and ample encomium on them. The author of
the Country Spectator doubts not to compare him with the
ablest teachers of antiquity. Perhaps we cannot dismiss
him better than with the pious ejaculation of C. — when he
heard that his old master was on his death-bed — " Poor
J. B. ! — may all his faults be forgiven ; and may he be
wafted to bliss by little cherub boys, all head and wings,
with no bottoms to reproach his sublunary infirmities."
Under him were many good and sound scholars bred. —
First Grecian of my time was Lancelot Pepys Stevens,
kindest of boys and men, since Co-grammar-master (and
inseparable companion) with Dr. T e.' What an
edifying spectacle did this brace of friends present to those
who remembered the anti-socialities of their predecessors !
— You never met the one by chance in the street without a
wonder, which was quickly dissipated by the almost
immediate sub-appearance of the other. Generally arm in
arm, these kindly coadjutors lightened for each other the
toilsome duties of their profession, and when, in advanced
age, one found it convenient to retire, the other was not
long in discovering that it suited him to lay down the
fasces also. Oh, it is pleasant, as it is rare, to find the
same arm linked in yours at forty, which at thirteen helped
it to turn over the Cicero De AmiciiiiT, or some tale of
Antique Friendship, which the young heart even then was
burning to anticipate ! — Co-Grecian with S. was Th ,^
who has since executed with ability various diplomatic
functions at the Northern courts. Th was a tall, dark,
saturnine youth, sparing of speech, with raven locks. —
Thomas Fanshaw Middleton followed him (now Bishop of
Calcutta) a scholar and a gentleman in his teens. He has
the reputation of an excellent critic; and is author (besides
the Country Spectator) of a Treatise on the Greek Article,
against Sharpe — M. is said to bear his mitre high in India,
Avhere the regni novitas (I dare say) sufficiently justifies the
bearing. A humility quite as primitive as that of Jewel or
Plooker might not be exactly fitted to impress the minds of
['Trollope.] [^Thornton.]
24
Christ's Hospital, etc.
those Anglo-Asiatic diocesans with a reverence for home
institutions, and the church which those fathers watered.
The manners of M. at school, though firm, were mild, and
unassuming. — Next to M. (if not senior to him) was
Richards, author of the Aboriginal Britons, the most
spirited of the Oxford Prize Poems; a pale, studious
Grecian. — Then followed poor S ,' ill-fated M ! ^ of
these the Muse is silent.
Finding some of Edward's race
Unhappy, pass their annals by.
Come back into memory, like as thou wert in the day-
spring of thy fancies, with hope like a fiery column before
thee — the dark pillar not yet turned — Samuel Taylor
Coleridge — Logician, Metaphysician, Bard ! — How have I
seen the casual passer through the Cloisters stand still,
entranced with admiration (while he weighed the dispro-
portion between the speech and the garb of the young
Mirandula), to hear thee unfold, in thy deep and sweet
intonations, the mysteries of Jamblichus, or Plotinus (for
even in those years thou waxedst not pale at such philo-
sophic draughts), or reciting Homer in his Greek, or
Pindar while the walls of the old Grey Friars re-echoed
to the accents of the ifispired charity-boy ! Many were the
"wit-combats" (to dally awhile with the words of old
Fuller) between him and C V. Le G ,3 "which two I
behold like a Spanish great gallion, and an English man-
of-war ; Master Coleridge, like the former, was built far
higher in learning, solid, but slow in his performances.
C. V. L., with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk, but
lighter in sailing, could turn with all tides, tack about, and
take advantage of all winds, by the quickness of his wit and
invention."
Nor shalt thou, their compeer, be quickly forgotten,
Allen, with the cordial smile, and still more cordial laugh,
with which thou wert wont to make the old Cloisters shake,
in thy cognition of some poignant jest of theirs; or the
anticipation of some more material, and, peradventure,
practical one, of thine own. Extinct are those smiles,
with that beautiful countenance, with which (for thou wert
['Scott ; died in Bedlam.]
[^ Maunde ; dismissed school.]
\} Charles Valentine Le Grice.]
25
The Essays of Elia
the Nireus formosus of the school), in the days of thy
maturer waggery, thou didst disarm the wrath of infuriated
town-damsel, who, incensed by provoking pinch, turning
tigress-like round, suddenly converted by thy angel-look,
exchanged the half-formed terrible "^/ ," for a gentler
greeting — '■^ bless thy handsome face f^
Next follow two, who ought to be now alive, and the
friends of Elia — the junior Le G and F ;* who
impelled, the former by a roving temper, the latter by too
quick a sense of neglect — ill capable of enduring the
slights poor Sizars are sometimes subject to in our seats of
learning — exchanged their Alma Mater for the camp ;
perishing, one by climate, and one on the plains of
Salamanca : — Le G sanguine, volatile, sweet-natured ;
F dogged, faithful, anticipative of insult, warm-hearted,
with something of the old Roman height about him.
Fine, frank-hearted Fr ,* the present master of
Hertford, with Marmaduke T ,3 mildest of Missionaries
— and both my good friends still — close the catalogue of
Grecians in my time.
THE TWO RACES OF MEN.
The human species, according to the best theory I can
form of it, is composed of two distinct races, ike me?! who
borrow^ and the men who lend. To these two original
diversities may be reduced all those impertinent classifica-
tions of Gothic and Celtic tribes, white men, black men,
red men. All the dwellers upon earth, "Parthians, and
Medes, and Elamites," flock hither, and do naturally fall
in with one or other of these primary distinctions. The
infinite superiority of the former, which I choose to
designate as the great race, is discernible in their figure,
port, and a certain instinctive sovereignty. The latter are
born degraded. "He shall serve his brethren." There is
something in the air of one of this cast, lean and suspicious ;
contrasting with the open, trusting, generous manner of the
other.
Observe who have been the greatest borrowers of all
[^ Favell ; left Cambridge, ashamed of his father, who was a house-
painter there.]
['Franklin.] [^ Thompson.]
26
The Two Races of Men
ages — Alcibiades — Falstafl" — Sir Richard Steele — our late
incomparable Brinsley — what a family likeness in all four !
What a careless, even deportment hath your borrower !
what rosy gills ! what a beautiful reliance on Providence
doth he manifest, — taking no more thought than lilies !
What contempt for money — accounting it (yours and mine
especially) no better than dross 1 What a liberal confound-
ing of those pedantic distinctions of meum and tuum ! or
rather, what a noble simplification of language (beyond
Tooke), resolving these supposed opposites into one clear,
intelligible pronoun adjective ! — What near approaches
doth he make to the primitive community^ — to the extent of
one-half of the principle at least ! —
He is the true taxer who "calleth all the world up to be
taxed ; " and the distance is as vast between him and one of
us, as subsisted betwixt the Augustan Majesty and the
poorest obolary Jew that paid it tribute-pittance at
Jerusalem ! — His exactions, too, have such a cheerful,
voluntary air ! So far removed from your sour parochial
or state-gatherers, — those ink-horn varlets, who carry
their want of welcome in their faces ! He cometh to you
with a smile, and troubleth you with no receipt ; confining
himself to no set season. Every day is his Candlemas, or
his Feast of Holy Michael. He applieth the iene tormentum
of a pleasant look to your purse, — which to that gentle
warmth expands her silken leaves, as naturally as the cloak
of the traveller, for which sun and wind contended ! He
is the true Propontic which never ebbeth ! The sea which
taketh handsomely at each man's hand. In vain the
victim, whom he delighteth to honour, struggles with
destiny; he is in the net. Lend therefore cheerfully, O
man ordained to lend — that thou lose not in the end, with
thy worldly penny, the reversion promised. Combine
not preposterously in thine own person the penalties of
Lazarus and of Dives I — but, when thou seest the proper
authority coming, meet it smilingly, as it were half-way.
Come, a handsome sacrifice ! See how light he makes of
it ! Strain not courtesies with a noble enemy.
Reflections like the foregoing were forced upon my mind
by the death of my old friend,' Ralph Bigod, Esq., who
departed this life on Wednesday evening ; dying, as he
had lived without much trouble. He boasted himself a
(' John Fenwick, editor of the "Albion.")
27
The Essays of Elia
descendant from mighty ancestors of that name, who hereto-
fore held ducal dignities in this realm. In his actions and
sentiments he belied not the stock to which he pretended.
Early in life he found himself invested with ample revenues ;
which, with that noble disinterestedness which I have
noticed as inherent in men of the great race, he took
almost immediate measures entirely to dissipate and bring
to nothing: for there is something revoking in the idea of
a king holding a private purse ; and the thoughts of Bigod
were all regal. Thus furnished, by the very act of dis-
furnishinent; getting rid of the cumbersome luggage of
riches, more apt (as one sings)
To slacken virtue, and abate her edge,
Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise,
he set forth, like some Alexander, upon his great enter-
prise, " borrowing and to borrow ! "
In his periegesis, or triumphant progress throughout this
island, it has been calculated that he laid a tithe part of
the inhabitants under contribution. I reject this estimate
as greatly exaggerated: — but having had the honour of
accompanying my friend, divers times, in his perambulations
about this vast city, I own I was greatly struck at first with
the prodigious number of faces we met, who claimed a sort
of respectful acquaintance with us. He was one day so
obliging as to explain the phenomenon. It seems, these
were his tributaries; feeders of his exchequer; gentlemen,
his good friends (as he was pleased to express himself), to
whom he had occasionally been beholden for a loan.
Their multitudes did in no way disconcert him. He
rather took a pride in numbering them ; and, with Comus,
seemed pleased to be " stocked with so fair a herd."
With such sources, it was a wonder how he contrived to
keep his treasury always empty. He did it by force of an
aphorism, which he had often in his mouth, that " money
kept longer than three days stinks." So he made use of it
while it was fresh. A good part he drank away (for he was
an excellent toss-pot), some he gave away, the rest he threw
away, literally tossing and hurling it violently from him —
as boys do burrs, or as if it had been infectious, — into
ponds or ditches, or deep holes, — inscrutable cavities of
the earth ; — or he would bury it (where he would never
seek it again) by a river's side under some bank, which (he
28
The Two Races of Men
would facetiously observe) paid no interest — but out away
from iiitn it must go pereuiptorily, as Hagar's offspring mto
the wilderness, while it was sweet. He never missed it.
The streams were perennial which fed his fisc. When new
sujiplies became necessary, the first person that had the
felicity to fall in with him, friend or stranger, was sure to
contribute to the deficiency. For Bigod had an undeniabl.
way with him. He had a cheerful, open exterior, a quick
jovial eye, a bald forehead, just touched with grey {cana
fides). He anticipated no excuse, and found none. And,
waiving for a while my theory as to the great race, I would
put it to the most untheorising reader, who may at times
have disposable coin in his pocket, whether it is not more
repugnant to the kindliness of his nature to refuse such a
one as I am describing, than to say no to a poor petitionary
rogue (your bastard borrower), who, by his mumping
visnomy, tells you, that he expects nothing better; and,
therefore, whose preconceived notions and expectations
you do in reality so much less shock in the refusal.
When I think of this man; his fiery glow of heart; his
swell of feeling; how magnificent, how ideal he was; how
great at the midnight hour; and when I compare with him
the companions wMth whom I have associated since, I grudge
the saving of a few idle ducats, and think that I am fallen
into the society of lenders^ and little men.
To one like Elia, whose treasures are rather cased in
leather covers than closed in iron coffers, there is a class of
alienators more formidable than that which I have touched
upon ; I mean your borrowers of books — those mutilators of
collections, spoilers of the symmetry of shelves, and creators
of odd volumes. There is Comberbatch, matchless in his
depredations 1
That foul gap in the bottom shelf facing you, like a great
eye-tooth knocked out — (you are now with me in my little
back study in Bloomsbury, reader !)■ with the huge
Switzer-like tomes on each side (like the Guildhall giants, in
their reformed posture, guardant of nothing) once held the
tallest of my folios, Opera JSonaventurce, choice and massy
divinity, to which its two supporters (school divinity also,
but of a lesser calibre, — Bellarmine, and Holy Thomas),
showed but as dwarfs, — itself an Ascapart ! — that Comber-
batch abstracted upon the faith of a theory he holds, which
is more easy, I confess, for me to suffer by than to refute,
29
The Essays of Elia
namely, that " the title to property in a book (my Bona-
venture, for instance), is in exact ratio to the claimant's
powers of understanding and appreciating the same."
Should he go on acting upon this theory which of our
shelves is safe ?
The slight vacuum in the left hand case — two shelves
from the ceiling — scarcely distinguishable but by the quick
eye of a loser was whilom the commodious resting-place
of Brown on Urn Burial. C. will hardly allege that he
knows more about that treatise than I do, who introduced
it to him, and was indeed the first (of the moderns) to dis-
cover its beauties — but so have I known a foolish lover to
praise his mistress in the presence of a rival more qualified
to carry her off than himself. — Just below, Dodsley's dramas
want their fourth volume, where Vittoria Corombona is !
The remainder nine are as distasteful as Priam's refuse sons,
when the Fates borrowed Hector. Here stood the Anatomy
of Melancholy, in sober state. — There loitered the Complete
Angler ; quiet as in life, by some stream side. — In yonder
nook, John Buncle, a widower-volume, with "eyes closed,"
mourns his ravished mate.
One justice I must do my friend, that if he sometimes,
like the sea, sweeps away a treasure, at another time, sea-
like, he throws up as rich an equivalent to match it. I
have a small under-collection of this nature (my friend's
gatherings in his various calls), picked up, he has forgotten
at what odd places, and deposited with as little memory at
mine. I take in these orphans, the twice-deserted. These
proselytes of the gate are welcome as the true Hebrews.
There they stand in conjunction ; natives, and naturalised.
The latter seemed as little disposed to inquire out their
true lineage as I am. — I charge no warehouse-room for these
deodands, nor shall ever put myself to the ungentlemanly
trouble of advertising a sale of them to pay expenses.
To lose a volume to C. carries some sense and meaning
in it. You are sure that he will make one hearty meal on
your viands, if he can give no account of the platter after
it. But what moved thee, wayward, spiteful K.,' to be so
importunate to carry off with thee, in spite of tears and ad-
jurations to thee to forbear, the Letters of that princely
woman, the thrice noble Margaret Newcastle? — growing at
the time, and knowing that I knew also, thou most assuredly
P Kenney, dramatist, author of " Raising the Wind," &c.]
30
New Year's Eve
wouldst never turn over one leaf of the illustrious folio : —
what but the mere spirit of contradiction, and childish love
of getting the better of thy friend ? — Then, worst cut of all !
to transport it with thee to the Gallican land —
Unworthy land to harbour such a sweetness,
A virtue in which all ennobling thoughts dwelt.
Pare thoughts, kind thoughts, high thoughts, her sex's wonder !
hadst thou not thy play-books, and books of jests and
fancies, about thee, to keep thee merry, even as thou
keepest all companies with thy quips and mirthful tales ?
— Child of the Green-room, it was unkindly done of thee.
Thy wife, too, that part-French, better-part Englishwoman !
— that she could fix upon no other treatise to bear away in
kindly token of remembering us, than the works of Fulke
Greville, Lord Brook — of which no Frenchman, nor woman
of France, Italy, or England, was ever by nature constituted
to comprehend a tittle ! Was there not Zimmerman on
Solitude?
Reader, if haply thou art blessed with a moderate
collection, be shy of showing it; or if thy heart overfloweth
to lend them, lend thy books; but let it be to such a one
as S. T. C. — he will return them (generally anticipating the
time appointed) with usury ; enriched with annotations,
tripling their value. I have had experience. Many are
these precious MSS. of his — (in matter oftentimes, and
almost in quantity not infrequently, vying with the originals)
— in no very clerkly hand — legible in my Daniel ; in old
Burton ; in Sir Thomas Browne ; and those abstruser
cogitations of the Greville, now, alas ! wandering in Pagan
lands 1 counsel thee, shut not thy heart, nor thy library,
against S. T. C.
NEW YEAR'S EVE.
Every man hath two birth-days; two days, at least, in
every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time,
as it affects his mortal duration. The one is that which in
an especial manner he termeth his. In the gradual
desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnising
our proper birth-day hath nearly passed away, or is left to
children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor
31
The Essays of Elia
understand any thing in it beyond cake and orange. But the
birth ot a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pre-
termitted b)' king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the
First of January with indifference. It is that from which
all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the
nativity of our common Adam.
Of all sound of all bells (bells, the music nighest border-
ing upon heaven) — most solemn and touching is the peal
which rings out the Old Year. I never hear it without a
gathering-up of my mind to a concentration of all the
images that have been diffused over the past twelvemonth ;
all I have done or suffered, performed or neglected — in
that regretted time. I begin to know its worth, as when a
person dies. It takes a personal colour ; nor was it a
poetical flight in a contemporary, when he exclaimed
I saw the skirts of the departing Year.
It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us
seems to be conscious of, in that awful leave-taking. I am
sure I felt it, and all felt it with me, last night • though
some of my companions affected rather to manifest an
exhilaration at the birth of the coming year, than any very
tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I am
none of those who —
Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties ; new books ;
new faces, new years, — from some mental twist which
makes it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have
almost ceased to hope ; and am sanguine only in the
prospects of other (former) years. I plunge into foregone
visions and conclusions. I encounter pell-mell with past
disappointments. I am armour-proof against old dis-
couragements. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, old
adversaries. I play over again for love, as the gamesters
phrnse it, games, for which I once paid so dear. I would
scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and
events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them
than the incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks,
it is better that I should have pined away seven of my
goldenest years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and
fairer eyes, of Alice W n,' than that so passionate a
[' Alice Winlerton.]
32
New Year's Eve
love-adventure should be lost. It was better that our family
should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated
us of, than tliat 1 should have at this moment two thousand
pounds in banco, and be without the idea of that specious
old rogue.
In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to look
back upon those early days. Do I advance a paradox,
when I say, that, skipping over the intervention of forty
years, a man may have leave to love himself., without the
imputation of self-love?
If I know aught of myself, no one whose mind is intro-
spective— and mine is painfully so — can have a less respect
for his present identity, than I have for the man Elia. I
know him to be light, and vain, and humorsomej a
notorious * * * ^ addicted to * * * * : averse from
counsel, neither taking it, nor offering it; — * * * besides ;
a stammering buffoon ; what you will ; lay it on, and spare
not ; I subscribe to it all, and much more, than thou canst
be willing to lay at his door but for the child Elia —
that "other me," there, in the back-ground — I must take
leave to cherish the remembrance of that young master —
with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid changeling
of five-and-forty, as if it had been a child of some other
house, and not of my parents. I can cry over its patient
small-pox at five, and rougher medicaments. I can lay its
poor fevered head upon the sick pillow at Christ's, and
wake with it in surprise at the gentle posture of maternal
tenderness hanging over it, that unknown had watched its
sleep. I know how it shrank from any the least colour of
falsehood. — God help thee, Elia, how art thou changed!
Thou art sophisticated. — I know how honest, how courage-
ous (for a weakling) it was — how religious, how imaginative,
how hopelul ! From what have I not fallen, if the child I
remember was indeed myself, — and not some dissembling
guardian, presenting a false identity, to give the rule to my
unpractised steps, and regulate the tone of my moral being !
That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of symjiathy,
in such retrospection, may be the symptom of some sirkly
idiosyncrasy. Or is it owing to another cause ; simply,
that being without wife or family, I have not learned to
project myself enough out of myself; and having no off-
spring of my own to dally with, I turn back upon memory,
and adopt my own early idea, as my heir and favourite?
c 33
The Essays of Elia
If these speculations seem fantastical to thee, reader — (a
busy man, perchance), if I tread out of the way of thy
sympathy, and am singularly-conceited only, I retire, im-
penetrable to ridicule, under the phantom cloud of Elia.
The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a
character not likely to let slip the sacred observance of
any old institution ; and the ringing out of the Old Year
was kept by them with circumstances of peculiar ceremony.
— In those days the sound of those midnight chimes
though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never
failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy.
Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of
it as a reckoning that concerned me. Not childhood
alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically
that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and, if need were,
he could preach a homily on the fragility of life ; but he
brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June
we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of
December. But now, shall I confess a truth? — I feel
these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the
probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expendi-
ture of moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings.
In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set
more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my
ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I
am not content to pass away "like a weaver's shuttle."
Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalat-
able draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with
the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and
reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love
with this green earth ; the face of town and country ; the
unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of
streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am content
to stand still at the age to which I am arrived ; I, and my
friends : to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I
do not want to be weaned by age ; or drop, like mellow
fruit, as they say, into the grave. — Any alteration, on this
earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discom-
poses me. My household-gods plant a terrible fixed foot,
and are not rooted up without blood. They do not
willingly seek Lavinian shores. A new state of being
staggers me.
Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and
34
New Year's Eve
summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the
dehcious juices of meats and fishes, and society, and the
cheerful glass, and candle-light, and fire-side conversations,
and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony itself— do these
things go out with life ?
Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you
are pleasant with him?
And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios ! must I part
with the intense delight of having you (huge armfuls) in
my embraces? Must knowledge come to me, if it come at
all, by some awkward experiment of intuition, and no
longer by this familiar process of reading?
Shall I enjoy friendsiiips there, wanting the smiling
indications which point me to them here, — the recognisable
face — the " sweet assurance of a look " — ?
In winter this intolerable disinclination to dying — to give
it its mildest name — does more especially haunt and beset
me. In a genial August noon, beneath a sweltering sky,
death is almost problematic. At those times do such poor
snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. Then we expand
and burgeon. Then are we as strong again, as valiant
again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The blast
that nips and shrinks me, puts me in thought of death.
All things allied to the insubstantial, wait upon that master
feeling; cold, numbness, dreams, perplexity; moonlight
itself, with its shadowy and spectral appearances, — that
cold ghost of the sun, or Phoebus' sickly sister, like that
innutritions one denounced in the Canticles: — I am none
of her minions — I hold with the Persian.
Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings
death into my mind. All partial evils, like humours, run
into that capital plague-sore. — I have heard some profess
an indifference to life. Such hail the end of their existence
as a port of refuge ; and speak of the grave as of some soft
arms, in which they may slumber as on a pillow. Some
have wooed death but out upon thee, I say, thou
foul, ugly phantom ! I detest, abhor, execrate, and (with
Friar John) give thee to six-score thousand devils, as in no
instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a
universal viper; to be branded, proscribed, and spoken
evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou
thin, melancholy Frivaiion, or more frightful and con-
founding Positive I
35
The Essays of Elia
Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are
altogether frigid and insulting, like thyself. For what
satisfaction hath a man, that he shall " lie down with kings
and emperors in death," who in his life-time never greatly
coveted the society of such bed-fellows? — or, forsooth, that,
"so shall the fairest face appear?" — why, to comfort me,
must Alice W n be a goblin ? More than all, I con-
ceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming
familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones.
Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing
me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must
shortly be." Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou
imaginest. In the meantime I am alive. I move about.
I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters ! Thy New
Years' Days are past, I survive, a jolly candidate for 1821.
Another cup of wine — and while that turn-coat bell, that
just now mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820 de-
parted, with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let
us attune to its peal the song made on a like occasion, by
hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton. —
THE NEW YEAR.
Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star
Tells us, the day himselPs not far ;
And see where, breaking from the night.
He gilds the western hills with light.
With him old Janus doth appear,
Peeping into the future year,
With such a look as seems to say,
The prospect is not good that way.
Thus do we rise ill sights to see,
Anci 'gainst ourselves to prophesy ;
When the prophetic fear of things
A more tormenting mischief brings,
More full of soul-tormenting gall.
Than direst mischiefs can befall.
But stay ! but stay ! methinks my sight,
Better inform'd by clearer light,
Discerns sereneness in that brow,
Tlial all contracted seem'd but now.
His revers'd face may show distaste,
And frown upon the ills are past ;
But that which this way looks is clear,
And smiles upon the New-born Year.
He look too from a place so high.
The Year lies open to his eye ;
36
New Year's Eve
And all the moments open are
To the exact discoverer.
Yet more and more he smiles upon
The happy revolution.
Why should we then suspect or fear
The influences of a year,
So smiles upon us ihe first morn,
And speaks us good so soon as born ?
Plague on't ! the last was ill enough,
This cannot but make better prooi ;
Or. at the worst, as we brush'd ilnough
The last, why so we may this too :
And then the next in reason shou'd
Be superexcellently good :
For the worst ills (we daily see)
Have no more perpetuity,
Than the best fortunes that do fall ;
Which also bring us wherewithal
Longer their being to support,
Than those do of the other sort :
And who has one good year in three,
And yet repines at destiny,
Appears ungrateful in the case.
And merits not the good he has.
Then let us welcome the New Guest
With lusty brimmers of the best ;
Mirth always should Good Fortune meet,
And render e'en Disaster sweet :
Anil though the Princess turn her back,
Let us but line ourselves with sack.
We better shall by far hold out,
Till the next Year she face about.
How say you, reader — do not these verses smack of the
rough magnanimity of the old English vein ? Do they not
fortify like a cordial; enlarging the heart, and produciive
of sweet blood, and generous spirits, in the concoction ?
Where be those puling fears of death, just now expressed
or aflfected ?— Passed like a cloud — absorbed in the purg-
ing sunlight of clear poetry — clean washed away by a wave
of genuine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries
— And now another cup of the generous ! and a merry New
Year, and many of them, to you all, my masters !
37
The Essays of Elia
MRS. BATTLE'S OPINIONS ON WHIST.
" A CLEAR fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game."
This was the celebrated wish of old Sarah Battle (now with
God) who, next to her devotions, loved a good game at
whist. She was none of your lukewarm gamesters, your
half and half players, who have no objection to take a hand,
if you want one to make up a rubber ; who affirm that they
have no pleasure in winning; that they like to win one
game and lose another; that they can while away an hour
very agreeably at a card-table, but are indifferent whether
they play or no ; and will desire an adversary, who has
slipt a wrong card, to take it up and play another. These
insufferable triflers are the curse of a table. One of these
flies will spoil a whole pot. Of such it may be said, that
they do not play at cards, but only play at playing at
them.
Sarah Battle was none of that breed. She detested
them, as I do, from her heart and soul ; and would not,
save upon a striking emergency, willingly seat herself at
the same table with them. She loved a thorough-paced
panner, a determined enemy. She took, and gave, no
concessions. She hated favours. She never made a
revoke, nor ever passed it over in her adversary without
exacting the utmost forfeiture. She fought a good fight:
cut and thrust. She held not her good sword (her cards)
"like a dancer." She sat bolt upright; and neither
showed you her cards, nor desired to see yours. All
people have their blind side — their superstitions ; and I
have heard her declare, under the rose, that Hearts was
her favourite suit.
I never in my life — and I knew Sarah Battle many of
the best years of it — saw her take out her snuff-box when
it was her turn to play; or snuff a candle in the middle of
a game ; or ring for a servant, till it was fairly over. She
never introduced or connived at, miscellaneous conversa-
tion during its process. As she emphatically observed,
cards were cards : and if I ever saw unmingled distaste in
her fine last-century countenance, it was at the airs of a
young gentleman of a literary turn, who had been with
difficulty persuaded to take a hand ; and who, in his excess
38
Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist
of candour, declared, that he thought there was no harm
in unbending the mind now and then, after serious studies,
in recreations of that kind ! She could not bear to have
her noble occupation, to which she wound up her faculties,
considered in that light. It was her business, her duty,
the thing she came into the world to do, — and she did it.
She unbent her mind afterwards — over a book.
Pope was her favourite author : his Rape of the Lock
her favourite work. She once did me the favour to play
over with me (with the cards) his celebrated game of
Ombre in that poem ; and to explain to me how far it
agreed with, and in what points it would be found to differ
from, tradrille. Her illustrations were apposite and poig-
nant; and I had the pleasure of sending the substance of
them to Mr. Bowles : but I suppose they came too late
to be inserted among his ingenious notes upon that
author.
Quadrille, she has often told me, was her first love ; but
whist had engaged her maturer esteem. The former, she
said, was showy and specious, and likely lo allure young
persons. The uncertainty and quick shifting of partners
— a thing which the constancy of whist abhors ; the
dazzling supremacy and regal investiture of Spadille —
absurd, as she justly observed, in the pure aristocracy of
whist, where his crown and garter gave him no proper
power above his brother-nobility of the Aces ; — the giddy
vanity, so taking to the inexperienced, of playing alone; —
above all, the overpowering attractions of a Sans Prendre
Vole, — to the triumph of which there is certainly nothing
parallel or approaching, in the contingencies of whist; —
all these, she would say, make quadrille a game of captiva-
tion to the young and enthusiastic. But whist was the
soldier game : that was her word. It was a long meal ;
not like quadrille, a feast of snatches. One or two
rubbers might co-extend in duration with an evening.
They gave time to form rooted friendships, to cultivate
steady enmities. She despised the chance-started, capri-
cious, and ever fluctuating alliances of the other. The
skirmishes of quadrille, she would say, reminded her of the
petty ephemeral embroilments of the little Italian states,
depicted by Machiavel ; perpetually changing postures and
connexions ; bitter foes to-day, sugared darlings to-morrow ;
kissing and scratching in a breath ; — but the wars of whist
39
The Essays of Elia
were comparable to the Ion?, steady, deep-rooted, rational,
antipathies ol the great French and Enghsh nations.
A grave simphcity was what she chiefly admired in her
favourite game. There was nothing silly in it, like the nob
in cribbage — nothing superfluous. No flushes — that most
irrational of all pleas that a reasonable being can set up: —
that any one should claim four by virtue of holding cards
of the same mark and colour, without reference to the
playing of the game, or the individual worth or pretensions
of the cards themselves 1 She held this to be a solecism ;
as pitiful an ambition at cards as alliteration is in author-
ship. She despised superficiality, and looked deeper than
the colours of things. Suits were soldiers, she would say,
and must have a uniformity of array to distinguish them :
but what should we say to a foolish squire, who should
claim a merit for dressing up his tenantry in red jackets,
that never were to be marshalled — never to take the field?
— Siie even wished that whist were more simple than it is ;
and, in my mind, would have stript it of some appendages,
which, in the state of human frailty, may be venially, and
even commendably allowed of. She saw no reason for the
deciding of the trump by the turn of the card. Why not
one suit always trumps? — Why two colours, when the
mark of the suits would have sufificiently distinguished
them without it? —
" But the eye, my dear Madam, is agreeably refreshed
with the variety. Man is not a creature of pure reason —
he must have his senses delightfully appealed to. We see
it in Roman Tatholic countries, where the music and the
paintings draw in many to worship, whom your quaker spirit
of unsensualising would have kept out. — You, yourself, have
a pretty collection of paintings — but confess to me,
whether, walking in your gallery at Sandham, among those
clear Vandykes, or among the Paul Potters in the ante-
room, you ever felt your bosom glow with an elegant
delight, at all cotnparable to that you have it in your
power to experience most evenings over a well-arranged
assortment of the court cards? — the pretty antic habits,
like heralds in a procession — the gay triumph assuring
scarlets — the contrasting deadly-killing sables — the 'hoary
majesty of spades' — Pam in all his glory ! —
" All these might be dispensed with ; and, with their
naked names upon the drab pasteboard, the game might go
40
Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist
on very well, pictureless. But the beauty of cards would
be extinguished for ever. Stripped of all that is imagina-
tive in them, they must degcneraie into mere gambling. —
Imagine a dull deal board, or drum head, to spread them
on, instead of that nice verdant carpet (next to nature's),
fittest arena for those courtly combatants to play their
gallant jousts and tourneys in ! — Exchange those delicately-
turned ivory markers — (work of Chinese artist, unconscious
of their symbol, — or as profanely slighting their true ap-
plication as the arrantest Ephesian journeyman that turned
out those little shrines for the goddess) — exchange them
for little bits of leather (our ancestors' money) or chalk and
a slate ! " —
The old lady, with a smile, confessed the soundness of
my logic ; and to her approbation of my arguments on her
favourite topic that evening, I have always fancied myself
indebted for the legacy of a curious cribbage board, made
of the finest Sienna marble, which her maternal uncle (Old
Walter Plumer, whom I have elsewhere celebrated) brought
with him from Florence: — this, and a trifle of five hundred
pounds came to me at her death.
The former bequest (which I do not least value) I have
kept with religious care ; though she herself, to confess a
truth, was never greatly taken with cribbage. It was an
essentially vulgar game, I have heard her say, — disputing
with her uncle, who was very partial to it. She could never
heartily bring her mouth to pronounce '■'■ go" ox '■'■ that's a
go." She called it an ungrammatical game. The pegging
teased her. I once knew her to forfeit a rubber (a five
dollar stake), because she would not take advantage of the
turn-up knave, which would have given it her, but which
she must have claimed by the disgraceful tenure of declaring
'■'■ two for his heels.^^ There is something extremely genteel
in this sort of self-denial. Sarah Battle was a gentlewoman
born.
Piquet she held the best game at the cards for two persons,
though she would ridicule the pedantry of the terms — such
as pique repique — the capot — they savoured (she thought)
of affectation. But games for two, or even three, she never
greatly cared for. She loved the quadrate, or square. She
would argue thus : — Cards are warfare : the ends are gain,
with glory. But cards are war, in disguise of a sport : when
single adversaries encounter, the ends proposed are too
41
The Essays of Elia
palpable. By themselves, it is too close a fight : with
spectators, it is not much bettered. No looker-on can be
interested, except for a bet, and then it is a mere affair of
money ; he cares not for your luck sympathetically, or for
your play. — Three are still worse; a mere naked war of
every man against every man, as in cribbage, without league
or alliance ; or a rotation of petty and contradictory interests,
a succession of heartless leagues, and not much more hearty
infractions of them, as in tradrille. But in square games
(she meant tvhist) all that is possible to be attained in card-
playing is accomplished. There are the incentives of profit
with honour, common to every species — though the latter
can be but very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games,
where the spectator is only feebly a participator. But the
parties in whist are spectators and principals too. They
are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not wanted.
He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence.
Whist abhors neutrality, or interests beyond its sphere.
You glory in some surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not
because a cold — or even an interested — by-stander witnesses
it, but because yonr partner sympathises in the contingency.
You win for two. You triumph for two. Two are exalted.
Two again are mortified ; which divides their disgrace, as
the conjunction doubles (by taking off the invidiousness)
your glories. Two losing to two are better reconciled, than
one to one in that close butchery. The hostile feeling is
weakened by multiplying the channels. War becomes a
civil game. — By such reasonings as these the old lady was
accustomed to defend her favourite pastime.
No inducement could ever prevail upon her to play at
any game where chance entered into the composition, yt:^?-
nothing. Chance, she would argue — and here again, admire
the subtlety of her conclusion ! — chance is nothing, but
where something else depends upon it. It is obvious, that
cannot h(t glory. What rational cause of exultation could
it give to a man to turn up size ace a hundred times together
by himself? or before spectators, where no stake was
depending? — Make a lottery of a hundred thousand tickets
with but one fortunate number — and what possible principle
of our nature, except stupid wonderment, could it gratify to
gain that number as many times successively, without a
prize? — Therefore she disliked the mixture of chance in
backgammon, where it was not played for money. She
42
Mrs. Battle's Opinions on Whist
called it foolish, and those people idiots, who were taken
with a lucky hit under such circumstances. Games of pure
skill were as little to her fancy. Played for a stake, they
were a mere system of over-reaching. Played for glory,
they were a mere setting of one man's wit — his memory, or
combination-faculty rather — against another's; like a
mock-engagement at a review, bloodless and profitless. —
She could not conceive a^awif wanting the spritely infusion
of chance, — the handsome excuses of good fortune. Two
people playing at chess in a corner of a room whilst whist
was stirring in the centre, would inspire her with unsufferable
horror and ennui. Those well-cut similitudes of Castles,
and Knights, the imagery of the board, she would argue
(and I think in this case justly) were entirely misplaced, and
senseless. Those hard head-contests can in no instance
ally with the fancy. They reject form and colour. A
pencil and dry slate (she used to sry) were the proper arena
for such combatants.
To those puny objectors against cards, as nurturing the
bad passions, she would retort, that man is a gaming animal.
He must be always trying to get the better in something or
other : — that this passion can scarcely be more safely ex-
pended than upon a game at cards : that cards are a
temporary illusion ; in truth, a mere drama ; for we do but
play at being mightily concerned, where a few idle shillings
are at stake, yet, during the illusion, we are as mightily
concerned as those whose stake is crowns and kingdoms.
They are a sort of dream-fighting ; much ado ; great
battling, and little blood shed ; mighty means for dispro-
portioned ends ; quite as diverting, and a great deal
more innoxious, than many of those more serious games
of life, which men play, without esteeming them to be
such.
With great deference to the old lady's judgment on these
matters, I think I have experienced some moments in my
life, when playing at cards /(3r nothinghzs even been very
agreeable. When I am in sickness, or not in the best
spirits, I sometimes call for the cards, and play a game at
piquet T^r love with my cousin Bridget — Bridget Elia.
I grant there is something sneaking in it : but with a
toothache or a sprained ankle, — when you are subdued and
humble, — you are glad to put up with an inferior spring of
action.
43
The Essays of Elia
There is such a thing in nature, I am convinced, as sick
IV hist. —
I grant it is not the highest style of man — I deprecate
the manes of Sarah Battle — she lives not, alas ! to whom I
should ai)ologise. —
At such times those terms which my old friend objected
to, come in as something admissible. — I love to get a
tierce or a quatorze, though they mean nothing. I am
subdued to an inierior interest. Those shadows of winning
amuse me.
That last game I had with my sweet cousin (I capotted
her) — (dare I tell thee how foolish I am ?) — I wished it might
have lasted for ever, though we gained nothing, and lost
nothing, though it was a mere shade of play : I would be
content to go on in that idle folly for ever. The pipkin
should be ever boiling, that was to prepare the gentle
lenitive to my foot, which Bridget was doomed to apply
after the game was over : and as I do not much relish
appliances, there it should ever bubble. Bridget and 1
should be ever playing.
A CHAPTER ON EARS.
I HAVE no ear.
Mistake me not, rejder, — nor imagine that I am by
nature destitute of those exterior twin appendages, hanging
ornaments, and (architecturally speaking) handsome volutes
to the human capital. Better my mother had never borne
me. — I am, I think, rather delicately than copiously pro-
vided with those conduits ; and I feel no disposition to
envy the mule for his plenty, or the mole for her exactness,
in those Ingenious labyrinthine inlets — those indispensable
side-intelligencers.
Neither have I incurred, nor done anything to incur,
with Defoe, that hideous disfigurement, which constrained
him to draw upon assurance — to feel "quite unabashed,"
and at ease upon that article. I was never, I thank my
stars, in the pillory ; nor, if I read them aright, is it within
the comp.iss of my destiny, that I ever should be.
When therefore I say that I have no ear, you will under-
stand me to mean — -for music. — To say that this heart never
44
A Chapter on Ears
melted at the concourse of sweet sounds, would be a fou!
self-libel. — " Water parted from the sea " never fails to mo\c
it strangely. So does " Jn w/anry." But they were used
to be sung at her harpsichord (the old-fashioned instrument
in vogue in those days) by a gentlewoman — the gentlest,
sure, that ever merited the appellation — the sweetest — why
should I hesitate to name Mrs, S ,' once ihe blooming
Fanny Weatheral of the Temple — who had power to thrill
the soul of Elia, small imp as he was, even in his long
coats ; and to make him glow, tremble, and blush with a
passion, that not faintly indicated the day-spring of that
absorbing sentiment, which was afterwards destined to
overwhelm and subdue his nature quite, for Alice W n.
I even think that sentimentally I am disposed to
harmony. But organically I am incapable of a tune. I
have been practising '■'■God save the King" all my life;
whistling and humming of it over to myself in solitary
corners ; and am not yet arrived, they tell me within many
quavers of it. Yet hath the loyalty of Elia never been
impeached.
1 am not without suspicion, that I have an undeveloped
faculty of music within me. For, thrumming, in my wild
way, on my friend A.'s piano, the other morning, while he
was engaged in an adjoining parlour, — on his return he was
])leased to say, " he thought it could not be the maid ! " On
his first surprise at hearing the keys touched in somewhat
an airy and masterful way, not dreaming of me, his
suspicions had lighted on /enny. But a grace, snatched
from a superior refinement, soon convinced him that some
being, — technically perhaps deficient, but higher informed
from a principle common to all the fine arts, — had swayed
the keys to a mood which Jenny, with all her (less cultivated)
enthusiasm, could never have elicited from them. 1
mention this as a proof of my friend's penetration and not
with any view of disparaging Jenny.
Scientifically I could never be made to understand (yet
have I taken some pains) what a note in music is ; or how
one note should differ from another. Much less in voices
can I distinguish a soprano from a tenor. Only sometimes
the thorough bass I contrive to guess at, from its being
supereminently harsh and disagreeable. I tremble, how-
ever, for my misapplication of the simplest terms of that
[' Spinkes.]
45
The Essays of Elia
which I disclaim. While I profess my ignorance, I scarce
know what to say I am ignorant of. I hate, perhaps, by
misnomers. Sostenuto and adagio sidsid in the like relation
of obscurity to me ; and Soi, Fa, Mi, Re, is as conjuring
as Baialipion.
It is hard to stand alone — in an age like this, — (con-
stituted to the quick and critical perception of all harmoni-
ous combinations, I verily believe, beyond all preceding
ages, since Jubal stumbled upon the gamut) to remain, as
it were, singly unimpressible to the magic influences of an
art, which is said to have such an especial stroke at sooth-
ing, elevating and refining the passions. — Vet rather than
break the candid current of my confessions, I must
avow to you, that I have received a great deal more
pain than pleasure from this so cried-up faculty.
I am constitutionally susceptible of noises. A carpenter's
hammer, in a warm summer noon, will fret me into more
than midsummer madness. But those unconnected, unset
sounds are nothing to the measured malice of music. The
ear is passive to those single strokes ; willingly enduring
stripes, while it hath no task to con. To music it cannot
be passive. It will strive — mine at least will — 'spite of
its inaptitude to thrid the maze ; like an unskilled eye
painfully poring upon hieroglyphics. I have sat through
an Italian Opera, till, for sheer pain, and inexplicable
anguish, I have rushed out into the noisiest places of the
crowded streets, to solace myself with sounds, which I was
not obliged to follow, and get rid of the distracting torment
of endless, fruitless, barren attention ! I take refuge in the
unpretending assemblage of honest, common-life sounds ;
— and the purgatory of the Enraged Musician becomes my
paradise.
I have sat at an Oratorio (that profanation of the
purposes of the cheerful playhouse) watching the faces of the
auditory in the [)it (what a contrast to Hogarth's Laughing
Audience !) immovable, or affecting some faint emotion,
— till (as some have said, that our occupations in the next
world will be but a shadow of what delighted us in this) I
have imagined myself in some cold Theatre in Hades,
where some of the forms of the earthly one should be kept
up, with none of the enjoyment ; or like that —
Party in a parlour.
All silent, and all damned:
46
A Chapter on Ears
Above all, those insuflferable concertos, and pieces of
music, as they are called, do plague and embitter my
apprehension. — Words are something; but to be exposed
to an endless battery of mere sounds; to be long a dying,
to lie stretched upon a rack of roses ; to keep up languor
by unintermitted effort ; to pile honey upon sugar, and
sugar upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness ;
to fill up sound with feeling, and strain ideas to keep pace
with it ; to gaze on empty frames, and be forced to make
the pictures for yourself; to read a book, all stops, and be
obliged to supply the verbal matter ; to invent extem-
pore tragedies to answer to the vague gestures of an inex-
plicable rambling mime — these are faint shadows of what I
have undergone from a series of the ablest-executed pieces
of this empty tnstrume?i(al 7nusic.
I deny not, that in the opening of a concert, I have
experienced something vastly lulling and agreeable : — after-
wards followeth the languor, and the oppression. Like
that disappointing book in Patmos ; or, like the comings
on of melancholy, described by Burton, doth music make
her first insinuating approaches : — "Most pleasant it is to
such as are melancholy given, to walk alone in some
solitary grove, betwixt wood and water, by some brook side,
and to meditate upon some delightsome and pleasant
subject, which shall affect him most, amabilis tnsania,
and mentis gratissimus error. A most incomparable delight
to build castles in the air, to go smiling to themselves, act-
ing an infinite variety of parts, which they suppose, and
strongly imagine, they act, or that they see done. — So
delightsome these toys at first, they could spend whole
days and nights without sleep, even whole years in such
contemplations, and fantastical meditations, which are like
so many dreams, and will hardly be drawn from them —
winding and unwinding themselves as so many clocks, and
still pleasing their humours, until at last the scene turns
UPON A SUDDEN, and they being now habitated to such
meditations, and solitary places, can endure no company,
can think of nothing but harsh and distasteful subjects.
Fear, sorrow, suspicion, subrusticus pudor, discontent, cares,
and weariness of life, surprise them on a sudden, and they
can think of nothing else : continually suspecting, no
sooner are their eyes open, but this infernal plague of
melancholy seizeth on them, and terrifies their souls, repre-
47
The Essays of Elia
senting some dismal object to their minds ; which now, by
no means, no labour, no persuasions they can avoid, they
cannot be rid of it, they cannot resist."
Something like this "scene-turning" I have exj)eri-
enced at the evening parties, at the house of my good
Catholic friend^ Nov / who, by the aid of a capital
organ, himself the most finished of players, converts his
drawing-room into a chapel, his week days into Sundays, and
these latter into minor heavens.^
When my friend commences upon one of those solemn
anthems which peradventure struck upon my heedless ear,
rambling in the side aisles of the dim abbey, some five
and thirty years since, waking a new sense and putting a
soul of old religion into my young apprehension —
whether it be that^ in which the psalmist, weary of the
persecutions of bad men, wisheth to himself dove's wings —
or that other, which, with a like measure of sobriety and
pathos, inquireth by what means the young man shall best
cleanse his mind — a holy calm pervadeth me, — I am for
the time.
rapt above earth,
And possess joys not promised at my birth.
But when this master of the spell, not content to have
laid a soul prostrate, goes on, in his power, to inflict more
bliss than lies in her capacity to receive, — impatient to
overcome her "earthly " with his "heavenly," — still pour-
ing in, for protracted hours, fresh waves and fresh from
the sea of sound, or from that inexhausted German ocean,
above which, in triumphant progress, dolphin-sealed, ride
those Arions Haydn and Mozart, with their attendant
tritons, Bach, Beethoven, and a countless tribe, whom to at-
tempt to reckon up would but plunge me again in the
deeps, — I stagger under the weight of harmony, reeling
to and fro at my wit's end ; — clouds, as of frankincense, op-
press me — priests, altars, censers, dazzle before me — the
genius of his religion hath me in her toils — a shadowy
triple tiara invests the brow of my friend, fate so naked,
so ingenious — he is Pope, — and by him sits, like as in the
anomaly of dreams, a she-Pope too, — tri-coroneted like
[' Vincent Novello.]
'I Ji.ive Ijeeii there, and still would go ;
'Tis like a little heaven below. — Dr. IVattS-
48
All Fools' Day
himself! I am converted, and yet a Protestant; — at once
malleus hereticomm, and myself grand heresiarch : or three
heresies centre in my person : — I am Marcion, Ebion, and
Cerinthus — Gog and Magog — what not? — till the coming
in of the friendly supper-tray dissipates the figment, and a
draught of true Lutheran beer (in which chiefly my friend
shows himself no bigot) at once reconciles me to the
rationalities of a purer faith ; and restores to me the
genuine unterrifying aspects of my pleasant-countenanced
host and hostess.
ALL FOOLS' DAY.
The compliments of the season to my worthy masters,
and a merry first of April to us all !
Many happy returns of this day to you — and you — and
you, Sir — nay, never frown, man, nor put a long face upon
the matter. Do not we know one another? what need of
ceremony among friends? we have all a touch oi that same
— you understand me — a speck of the motley. Beshrew
the man who on such a day as this, the gefieral festival,
should afifect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers.
I am free of the corporation, and care not who knows it.
He that meets me in the forest to-day, shall meet with no
wise-acre, I can tell him. Siultus sum. Translate me
that, and take the meaning of it to yourself for your pains.
What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side,
at the least computation.
Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry — we will
drink no wise, melancholy, politic port on this day — and
let us troll the catch of Amiens — due ad me — due ad me —
how goes it ?
Here shall he see
Gross fools as he.
Now would I give a trifle to know historically and
authentically, who was the greatest fool that ever lived. I
would certainly give him in a bumper Marry, of the
present breed, I think I could without much difficulty
name you the party.
Remove your cap a little further, if you please ; it hides
my bauble. And now each man bestride his hobby, and
D 49
The Essays of Elia
aust away his bells to what tune he pleases. I will give
you, for my part,
The crazy old church clock,
And the bewildered chimes.
Good master Empedocles, you are welcome. It is long
since you went a salamander-gathering down ^'I'-tna. Worse
than samphire-picking by some odds. 'Tis a mercy your
worship did not singe your mustachios.
Ha ! Cleombrotus 1 and what salads in faith did you
light upon at the bottom of the Mediterranean ? You were
founder, I take it, of the disinterested sect of the
Calenturists.
Gebir, my old free-mason, and prince of plasterers at
Babel, bring in your trowel, most Ancient Grand ! You
have claim to a seat here at my right hand, as patron of
the stammerers. You left your work, if I remember Here-
dotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or there-
about, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell
you must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their
nuncheon on the low grounds of Scnnaar. Or did you send
up your garlick and onions by a rocket? I am a rogue if
I am not ashiimcd to show you our Monument on Fish Street
Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat.
What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears? — cry, baby,
put its finger in its eye, it shall have another globe, round
as an orange, pretty moppet !
Mister Adams 'odso, I honour your coat — pray do
us the favour to read to us that sermon, which you lent to
Mistress Slipslop — the twenty and second in your port-
manteau there — on Female Incontinence — the same — it
will come in most irrelevantly and im[)ertinently seasonable
lo the time of the day.
Good Master Raymund Lully, you look wise. Pray
correct that error.
Duns, spare your defmitions. I must fine you a bumper,
or a paradox. We will have nothing said or done syllo-
gistically this day. Remove those logical forms, waiter,
that no gentleman break the tender shins of his apprehen-
sion stumbling across them.
Master Stephen, you are late. — Ha I Cokes, is it you? —
Agiiecheek, my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you.
— Master Shallow, your worship's poor servant to com-
mand.— Master Silence, I will use few words with you. —
50
All Fools' Day
Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in somewhere. —
You six will engross all the poor wit of the company
to-day. — I know it, I know it.
Ha ! honest R ,' my fine old Librarian of Ludgate,
time out ot mind, art thou here again? Bless thy doublet,
it is not over-new, threadbare as thy stories : — what dost
thou flitting about the world at this rate? — Thy customers
are extinct, defunct, bed-rid, have ceased to read long ago.
— Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure,
thou canst hawk a volume or two. — Good Granville S ,^
thy last patron, is flown.
King Pandion, he is dead,
All thy friends are lapt in lead. —
Nevertheless, noble R , come in, and take your seat
here, between Armado and Quisada : for in true courtesy,
in gravity, in fantastic smiling to thyself, in courteous
smiling upon others, in the goodly ornature of well-
apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise
sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished
Dons of Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever,
when I forget thy singing the song of Macheath, which
declares that he might be happy withtither, situated between
those two ancient spinsters — when I forget the inimitable
formal love which thou didst make, turning now to the one,
and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile — as if
Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero ; and as if
thousands of periods must revolve, before the mirror of
courtesy could have given his invidious preference between
a pair of so goodly-propertied and meritorious-equal
damsels. ♦ ♦ * ♦
To descend from these altitudes, and not to protract our
Fools' Banquet beyond its appropriate day, — for I fear the
second of April is not many hours distant — in sober verity
I will confess a truth to thee, reader. I love a Fool — as
naturally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. When a
child, with child-like apprehensions, that dived not below
the surface of the matter, I read those Parables — not
guessing at their involved wisdom — I had more yearnings
towards that simple architect, that built his house upon the
sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbour;
I grudged at the hard censure pronounced upon the quiet
[' Ramsay.]
[* Granville Sharp.]
SI
The Essays of Elia
soul that kept his talent; and — prizing their simplicity
beyond the more provident, and, to my ai)prehension, some-
what unfeminine wariness of their competitors — I felt a
kindhness, that almost amounted to a iendre, for those five
thoughtless virgins — I have never made an acquaintance
since, that lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with
any that had not some tincture of the absurd in their
characters. I venerate an honest oblicjuily of understand-
ing. The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in
your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will
not betray or overreach you. I love the safety which a
palpable hallucination warrants ; the security, which a word
out of season ratifies. And take my word for this, reader,
and say a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath
not a dram of folly in his mixture, had pounds of much
worse matter in his composition. It is observed, that "the
foolisher the fowl or fish — woodcocks, — dotterels, — cod's-
heads, &c., the finer the flesh thereof," and what are com-
monly the world's received fools, but such whereof the
world is not worthy? and what have been some of the
kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of
absurdity, minions of the goddess, and her white boys? —
Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construc-
tion, it is you, and not I, that are the April Fool.
A QUAKERS' MEETING.
Still-born Silence ? thou that art
Flood-gate of the deeper heart I
Offspring of a heavenly kind !
Frost o' the mouth, and thaw o' the mind !
Secrecy's confidant, and he
Who makes religion mystery !
Admiration's speaking'st tongue !
Leave, thy desert shades among,
Reverend hermits' hallowed cells,
Where retired devotion dwells !
With thy enthusiasms come,
Seize our tongues, and strike us dumb ! '
Reader, would'st thou know what true peace and quiet
mean : would'st thou find a refuge from the noises and
' From " Poems of all sorts," by Richard Fleckno, 1653.
52
A Quakers' Meeting
clamours of the multitude ; would'st thou enjoy at once
solitude and society; would'st thou possess the depth of
thine own spirit in stillness, without being shut out from
the consolatory faces of thy species ; would'st thou be alone,
and yet accompanied ; solitary, yet not desolate ; singular,
yet not without some to keep thee in countenance; — a unit
in aggregate; a simple in composite: — come with me into
a Quakers' Meeting.
Dost thou love silence deep as that " before the winds
were made? "go not out into the wilderness, descend not
into the profundities of the earth ; shut not up thy
casements; nor pour wax into the little cells of thy ears,
with little-faith'd self-mistrusting Ulysses. — Retire with me
into a Quakers' Meeting.
For a man to refrain even from good words, and to hold
his peace, it is commendable; but for a multitude, it is
great mastery.
What is the stillness of the desert, compared with this
place? what the uncommunicating muteness of fishes? —
here the goddess reigns and revels. — " Boreas, and Cesias,
and Argt'stes loud," do not with their inter-confounding
uproars more augment the brawl — nor the waves of the
blown Baltic with their clubbed sounds — than their opposite
(Silence her sacred self) is multiplied and rendered more
intense by numbers, and by sympathy. She too hath her
deeps, that call unto deeps. Negation itself hath a
positive more or less ; and closed eyes would seem to
obscure the great obscurity of midnight.
There are wounds, which an imperfect solitude cannot
heal. By imperfect I mean that which a man enjoyeth by
himself. The perfect is that which he can sometimes
attain in crowds, but nowhere so absolutely as in a Quakers'
Meeting. — Those first hermits did certainly understand
this principle, when they retired into Egyptian solitudes,
not singly, but in shoals, to enjoy one another's want of
conversation. The Carthusian is bound to his brethren
by this agreeing spirit of incommunicativeness. In
secular occasions, what so pleasant as to be reading a book
through a long winter evening, with a friend sitting by
— say, a wife — he, or she, too (if that be probable), reading
another, without interruption, or oral communication? —
can there be no sympathy without the gabble of words ?
— away with this inhuman, shy, single, shade-and-cavern-
53
The Essays of Elia
haunting solitariness. Give me, Master Zimmerman,
a sympathetic solitude.
To pace alone in the cloisters, or side aisles of some
cathedral, time-stricken :
Or under hanging mountains,
Or by the fall of fountains ;
is but a vulgar luxury, compared with that which those
enjoy, who come together for the purposes of more com-
plete, abstracted solitude. This is the loneliness "to
be felt." — The Abbey Church of Westminster hath noth-
ing so solemn, so spirit-soothing, as the naked walls and
benches of a Quakers' Meeting. Here are no tombs, no
inscriptions,
sands, ignoble things,
Dropt from the ruined sides of kings —
but here is something, which throws Antiquity herself into
the foreground — Silence — eldest of things — language of
old Night — primitive Discourser — to which the insolent
decays of mouldering grandeur have but arrived by a
violent, and, as we may say, unnatural progression.
How reverend is the view of these hushed heads,
Looking tranquillity !
Nothing -plotting, nought - caballing, unmischievous
synod ! convocation without intrigue ! parliament without
debate ! what a lesson dost thou read to Council, and to
consistory ! if my pen treat of you lightly — as haply it will
wander — yet my spirit hath gravely felt the wisdom of your
custom, when sitting among you in deepest peace, which
some out-welling tears would rather confirm than disturb, I
have reverted to the times of your beginnings, and the sow-
ings of the seed by Fox and r3ewesbury. — I have witnessed
that, which brought before my eyes your heroic tranquillity,
inflexible to the rude jests and serious violences of the
insolent soldiery, republican or royalist, sent to molest you
— for ye sate betwixt the fires of two persecutions, the out-
cast and oflT-scowering of church and presbytery. — I have
seen the reeling sea-ruffian, who had wandered into your
receptacle, with the avowed intention of disturbing your
quiet, from the very spirit of the place receive in a moment
54
A Quakers' Meeting
a new heart, and presently sit among ye as a lamb amidst
lambs. And I remembered Penn before his accusers, and
Fox in the bail-dock, where he was lifted up in spirit, as
he tells us, and "the Judge and the Jury became as dead
men under his feet."
Reader, if you are not acquainted with it, I would re-
commend to you, above all church-narratives, to read
Sewel's History of the Quakers. It is in folio, and is the
abstract of the journals of Fox, and the primitive Friends.
It is far more edifying and affecting than anything you will
read of Wesley and his colleagues. Here is nothing to
stagger you, nothing to make you mistrust, no suspicion
of alloy, no drop or dreg of the worldly or ambitious spirit.
You will here read the true story of that much-injured,
ridiculed man (who perhaps hath been a by-word in your
mouth) — James Naylor : what dreadful sufferings, with
what patience, he endured even to the boring through of
his tongue with red-hot irons without a murmur; and with
what strength of mind, when the delusion he had fallen
into, which they stigmatised for blasphemy, had given way
to clearer thoughts, he could renounce his error, in a strain
of the beautifullest humility, yet keep his first grounds, and
be a Quaker still ! — so different from the practice of your
common converts from enthusiasm, who, when they
apostatise, apostatise all, and think they can never get far
enough from the society of their former errors, even to the
renunciation of some saving truths, with which they had
been mingled, not implicated.
Get the Writings of John Woolman hy heart ; and love
the early Quakers.
How far the followers of these good men in our days
have kept to the primitive spirit, or in what proportion they
have substituted formality for it, the Judge of Spirits can
alone determine. I have seen faces in their assemblies,
upon which the dove sate visibly brooding. Others again
I have watched, when my thoughts should have been better
engaged, in which I could possibly detect nothing but a
blank inanity. But quiet was in all, and the disposition to
unanimity, and the absence of the fierce controversial
workings. — If the spiritual pretensions of the Quakers have
abated, at least they make few pretences. Hypocrites they
certainly are not, in their preaching. It is seldom indeed
that you shall see one get up amongst them to hold forth.
55
The Essays of Elia
Only now and then a trembling female, generally ancient,
voice is heard — you cannot guess from what part of the
meeting it proceeds — with a low, buzzing, musical sound,
laying out a few words which " she thought might suit the
condition of some present," with a quaking diffidence,
which leaves no possibility of supposing that any thing of
female vanity was mixed up, where the tones were so full
of tenderness, and a restraining modesty. — The men, for
what I have observed, speak seldomer.
Once only, and it was some years ago, I witnessed a
sample of the old Foxian orgasm. It was a man of giant
stature, who, as Wordsworth phrases it, might have danced
"from head to foot equipt in iron mail." His frame was of
iron too. But he was malleable. I saw him shake all over
with the spirit — I dare not say, of delusion. The strivings
of the outer man were unutterable — he seemed not to
speak, but to be spoken from. I saw the strong man
bowed down, and his knees to fail — his joints all seemed
loosening — it was a figure to set off against Paul Preaching
— the words he uttered were few, and sound — he was
evidently resisting his will — keeping down his own word-
wisdom with more mighty effort, than the world's orators
strain for theirs. *' He had been a Wit in his youth," he
told us, with expressions of a sober remorse. And it was
not till long after the impression had begun to wear away, that
1 was enabled, with something like a smile, to recall the
striking incongruity of the confession — understanding the
term in its worldly acceptation — with the frame and physi-
ognomy of the person before me. His brow would have
scared away the Levites — the Jocos Risus-que — faster than
the Loves fled the face of Dis at Enna. By wit, even in
his youth, I will be sworn he understood something far
within the limits of an allowable liberty.
More frequently the Meeting is broken up without a
word having been spoken. But the mind has been fed.
You go away with a sermon, not made with hands. You
have been in the milder caverns of Trophonius ; or as in
some den, where that fiercest and savagest of all wild
creatures, the Tongue, that unruly member, has strangely
lain tied up and captive. You have bathed with stillness.
— O when the spirit is sore fettered, even tired to sickness
of the janglings, and nonsense noises of the world, what a
balm and a solace it is, to go and seat yourself for a quiet
56
The Old and the New Schoolmaster
half hour, upon some undisputed corner of a bench, among
the gentle Quakers !
Their garb and stillness conjoined, present an uniformity,
tranquil and herd-like — as in the pasture — "forty feeding
like one." —
The very garments of a Quaker seem incapable of re-
ceiving a soil ; and cleanliness in them to be something
more than the absence of its contrary. Every Quakeress
is a lily ; and when they come up in bands to their Whit-
sun-conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the
metropolis, from all parts of the United Kingdom, they
show like troops of the Shining Ones
THE OLD AND THE NEW SCHOOLMASTER.
My reading has been lamentably desultory and im-
methodical. Odd, out of the way, old English plays, and
treatises, have supplied me with most of my notions, and
ways of feeling. In every thing that relates to science, I am
a whole Encyclopaedia behind the rest of the world. I
should have scarcely cut a figure among the franklins, or
country gentlemen, in King John's days. I know less
geography than a school-boy of six weeks' standing. To
me a map of old Ortelius is as authentic as Arrowsmith.
I do not know whereabout Africa merges into Asia ;
whether Ethiopia lie in one or other of those great divi-
sions ; nor can form the remotest conjecture of the posi-
tion of New South Wales, or Van Diemen's Land. Yet do
I hold a correspondence with a very dear friend in the
first-named of these two Terrse Incognitse. I have no
astronomy. I do not know where to look for the Bear, or
Charles's Wain ; the place of any star ; or the name of any
of them at sight. I guess at Venus only by her brightness
— and if the sun on some portentous morn were to make
his first appearance in the West, I verily believe, that,
while all the world were gasping in apprehension about me,
I alone should stand unterrified, from sheer incuriosity and
want of observation. Of history and chronology I possess
5ome vague points, such as one cannot help picking up
in the course of miscellaneous study ; but I never deliber-
ately sat down to a chronicle, even of my own country. I
57
The Essays of Elia
have most dim apprehensions of the four great monarchies ;
and sometimes the Assyrian, sometimes the Persian, floats
as first in my fancy. 1 make the wildest conjectures con-
cerning Egypt, and her shepherd kings. My friend M.^^
with great pains-taking, got me to think I understood the
first proposition in EucHd, but gave me over in despair at
the second. I am entirely unacquainted with the modern
languages; and, like a better man than myself, have "small
Latin and less Greek." I am a stranger to the shapes and
texture of the commonest trees, herbs, flowers — not from
the circumstance of my being town-born — for I should
have brought the same inobservant spirit into the world
with me, had I first seen it, " on Devon's leafy shores," —
and am no less at a loss among purely town-objects, tools,
engines, mechanic processes. — Not that I afi"ect ignorance
— but my head has not many mansions, nor spacious; and
I have been obliged to fill it with such cabinet curiosities
as it can hold without aching. I sometimes wonder how I
have passed my probation with so little discredit in the
world, as I have done, upon so meagre a stock. But the
fact is, a man may do very well with a very little knowledge,
and scarce be found out, in mixed company; every body is
so much more ready to produce his own, than to call for a
display of your acquisitions. But in a tete-a-tete there is no
shuffling. The truth will out. There is nothing which I
dre.nd so much, as the being left alone for a quarter of an
hour with a sensible, well-informed man that does not
know me. I lately got into a dilemma of this sort. —
In one of my daily jaunts between Bishopsgate and
Shacklewell, the coach stopped to take up a staid-looking
gentleman, about the wrong side of thirty, who was giving
his parting directions (while the steps were adjusting), in a
tone of mild authority, to a tall youth, who seemed to be
neither his clerk, his son, nor his servant, but something
partaking of all three. The youth was dismissed, and
we drove on. As we were the sole passengers, he naturally
enough addressed his conversation to me ; and we dis-
cussed the merits of the fare, the civility and punctuality of
the driver ; the circumstance of an opposition coach having
been lately set up, with the probabilities of its success — to
all which I was enabled to return pretty satisfactory
answers, having been drilled into this kind of etiquette by
[' Thomas Manning.]
58
The Old and the New Schoolmaster
some years' daily practice of riding to and fro in the stage
aforesaid — when he suddenly alarmed me by a startling
question, whether I had seen the show of prize cattle
that morning in Smithfield ? Now as I had not seen it,
and do not greatly care for such sort of exhibitions, I was
obliged to return a cold negative. He seemed a little
mortified, as well as astonished, at my declaration, as (it
appeared) he was just come fresh from the sight, and doubt-
less had hoped to compare notes on the subject. However
he assured me that I had lost a fine treat, as it far exceeded
the show of last year. We were now approaching Norton
Falgate, when the sight of some shop-goods ticketed
freshened him up into a dissertation upon the cheapness
of cottons this spring. I was now a little in heart, as the
nature of my morning avocations had brought me into
some sort of familiarity with the raw material ; and I was
surprised to find how eloquent I was becoming on the
state of the Indian market — when, presently, he dashed my
incipient vanity to the earth at once, by inquiring whether
I had ever made any calculation as to the value of the
rental of all the retail shops in London. Had he asked
of me, what song the Sirens sang, or what name Achilles
assumed when he hid himself among women, I might,
with Sir Thomas Browne, have hazarded a "wide solu-
tion."^ My companion saw my embarrassment, and, the
almshouses beyond Shoreditch just coming in view, with
great good-nature and dexterity shifted his conversation
to the subject of public charities ; which led to the com-
parative merits of provision for the poor in past and present
times, with observations on the old monastic institutions,
and charitable orders ; but, finding me rather dimly im-
pressed with some glimmering notions from old poetic
associations, than strongly fortified with any speculations
reducible to calculation on the subject, he gave the matter
up; and, the country beginning to open more and more
upon us, as we approached the turnpike at Kingsland (the
destined termination of his journey), he put a home thrust
upon me, in the most unfortunate position he could have
chosen, by advancing some queries relative to the North
Pole Expedition. While I was muttering out something
about the Panorama of those strange regions (which I had
actually seen), by way of parrying the question, the coach
' Urn Burial.
59
The Essays of Elia
stopping relieved me from any further apprehensions. My
companion getting out, left me in the comfortable posses-
sion of my ignorance; and I heard him, as he went off,
putting questions to an outside passenger, who had aliyhted
with him, regarding an epidemic disorder, that had been
rife about Dalston ; and which, my friend assured him, had
gone through five or six schools in that neighbourhood.
The truth now flashed upon me, that my companion was
a schoolmaster ; and that the youth, whom he had parted
from at our first acquaintance, must have been one of the
bigger boys, or the usher. — He was evidently a kind-
hearted man, who did not seem so much desirous of pro-
voking discussion by the questions which he put, as of
obtaining information at any rate. It did not appear that
he took any interest, either, in such kind of inquiries, for
their own sake ; but that he was in some way bound to
seek for knowledge. A greenish-coloured coat, which he
had on, forbade me to surmise that he was a clergyman.
The adventure gave birth to some reflections on the
difference between persons of his profession in past and
present times.
Rest to the souls of those fine old Pedagogues; the
breed, long since extinct, of the Lilys, and the Linacres :
who believing that all learning was contained in the
languages which they taught, and despising every other
acquirement as superficial and useless, came to their task as
to a sport ! Passing from infancy to age, they dreamed
away all their days as in a grammar-school. Revolving in
a perpetual cycle of declensions, conjugations, syntaxes, and
prosodies; renewing constantly the occupations which had
charmed their studious childhood; rehearsing continually
the part of the past ; life must have slip[)ed from them at
last like one day. They were always in their first garden,
reaping harvests of their golden time, among their Flori
and their Spici-legia ; in Arcadia still, but kings; the
ferule of their sway not much harsher, but of like dignity
with that mild sceptre attributed to king Basileus ; the
Greek and Latin, their stately Pamela and their Philoclea;
with the occasional duncery of some untoward Tyro, serv-
ing for a refreshing interlude of a Mopsa, or a clown
Damretris !
With what a savour doth the Preface to Colet's, or (as it
is sometimes called) Paul's "Accidence," set forth ! "To
60
The Old and the New Schoohnaster
exhort every man to the learning of grammar, that intendeth
to attain the understanding of the tongues, wherein is con-
tained a great treasury of wisdom and knowledge, it would
seem but vain and lost labour ; for so much as it is known,
that nothing can surely be ended, whose beginning is either
feeble or faulty ; and no building be perfect, whereas the
foundation and ground work is ready to fall, and unable to
uphold the burden of the frame." How well doth this
stately preamble (comparable to those which Milton com-
mendeth as " having been the usage to prefix to some
solemn law, then first promulgated by Solon, or Lycurgus ")
correspond with and illustrate that pious zeal for con-
formity, expressed in a succeeding clause, which would
fence about grammar-rules with the severity of laith-articles !
— "as for the diversity of grammars, it is well profitably
taken away by the king majesties wisdom, who foreseeing
the inconvenience, and favourably providing the remedie,
caused one kind of grammar by sundry learned men to be
diligently drawn, and so to be set out, only everywhere to
be taught for the use of learners, and for the hurt in chang-
ing of schoolmasters." What a gusio in that which
follows : " wherein it is profitable that he [the pupil] can
orderly decline his noun and his verb." His noun !
The fine dream is fading away fast ; and the least
concern of a teacher in the present day is to inculcate
grammar-rules.
The modern schoolmaster is expected to know a little
of every thing, because his pupil is required not to be
entirely ignorant of anything. He must be superficially,
if 1 may so say, omniscient. He is to know something of
pneumatics; of chemistry; of whatever is curious, or
proper to excite the attention of the youthful mind ; an
insight into mechanics is desirable, with a touch of
statistics ; the quality of soils, etc., botany, the constitution
of his country, cum multis aliis. You may get a notion of
some part of his expected duties by consulting the famous
Tractate on Education addressed to Mr. Hartlib.
All these things — these, or the desire of them — he is
expected to instil, not by set lessons from professors, which
he may charge in the bill, but at school-intervals, as he
walks the streets, or saunters through green fields (those
natural instructors), with his pupils. The least part of
what is expected from him, is to be done in school-hours.
6i
The Essays of Elia
He must insinuate knowledge at the mollia tempora fatidi.
He must seize every occasion — tlie season of the year —
tlie time of the day — a passing cloud — a rainbow — a
waggon of hay — a regiment of soldiers going by — to in-
culcate something useful. He can receive no pleasure
from a casual glimpse of Nature, but must catch at it as
an object of instruction. He must interpret beauty into
the picturesque. He cannot relish a beggar-man, or a
gipsy, for thinking of the suitable improvement. Nothing
comes to him, not spoiled by the sophisticating medium
of moral uses. The Universe — that Great Book, as it has
been called — is to him indeed, to all intents and purposes,
a book, out of which he is doomed to read tedious homilies
to distasting schoolboys. — Vacations themselves are none
to him, he is only rather worse off than before ; for
commonly he has some intrusive upper-boy fastened upon
him at such times ; some cadet of a great family ; some
neglected lump of nobility, or gentry ; that he must drag
after him to the play, to the Panorama, to Mr. Bartley's
Orrery, to the Panopticon, or into the country, to a friend's
house, or his favourite watering-place. Wherever he goes,
this uneasy shadow attends him. A boy is at his board,
and in his path, and in all his movements. He is boy-rid,
sick of perpetual boy.
Boys are capital fellows in their own way, among their
mates ; but they are unwholesome companions for grown
people. The restraint is felt no less on the one side, than
on the other. — Even a child, that "plaything for an hour,"
tires always. The noises of children, playing their own
fancies — as I now hearken to them by fits, sporting on the
green before my window, while I am engaged in these
grave speculations at my neat suburban retreat at Shackle-
well — by distance made more sweet — inexpressibly take
from the labour of my task. It is like writing to music.
They seem to modulate my periods. They ought at least
to do so — for in the voice of ihai tender age there is a kind
of poetry, far unlike the harsh prose-accents of man's con-
versation.— I should but spoil their sport, and diminish my
own sympathy for them, by mingling in their pastime.
I would not be domesticated all my days with a person
of very superior capacity to my own — not, if I know myself
at all, from any considerations of jealousy or self-comparison,
for the occasional communion with such minds has con-
62
The Old and the New Schoolmaster
stituted the fortune and felicity of my life — but the habit
of too constant intercourse with spirits above you, instead
of raising you, keeps you down. Too frequent doses of
original thinking from others, restrain what lesser portion
of that faculty you may possess of your own. You get
entangled in another man's mind, even as you lose yourself
in another man's grounds. You are walking with a tall
varlet, whose strides out-pace yours to lassitude. The
constant operation of such potent agency would reduce me,
I am convinced, to imbecility. You may derive thoughts
from others ; your way of thinking, the mould in which
your thoughts are cast, must be your own. Intellect may
be imparted, but not each man's intellectual frame. —
As little as I should wish to be always thus dragged up-
wards, as little (or rather still less) is it desirable to be
stunted downwards by your associates. The trumpet does
not more stun you by its loudness, than a whisper teases
you by its provoking inaudibility.
Why are we never quite at our ease in the presence of a
school-master? — because we are conscious that he is not
quite at his ease in ours. He is awkward, and out of place,
in the society of his equals. He comes like Gulliver from
among his little people, and he cannot fit the stature of his
understanding to yours. He cannot meet you on the square.
He wants a point given him, like an indifferent whist-player.
He is so used to teaching, that he wants to be teaching
vou. One of these professors, upon my complaining that
these little sketches of mine were any thing but methodical,
and that I was unable to make them otherwise, kindly
offered to instruct me in the method by which young
gentlemen in Ais seminary were taught to compose English
themes. — The jests of a schoolmaster are coarse, or thin.
They do not /<?// out of school. He is under the restraint
of a formal and didactive hypocrisy in company, as a clergy-
man is under a moral one. He can no more let his intellect
loose in society, than the other can his inclinations. — He is
forlorn among his co-evals; his juniors cannot be his friends.
"I take blame to myself," said a sensible man of this
profession, writing to a friend respecting a youth who had
quitted his school abruptly, "that your nephew was not
more attached to me. But persons in my situation are
more to be pitied, than can well be imagined. We are
surrounded by young, and, consequently, ardently affec-
63
The Essays of Elia
tionate hearts, but wr can never hope to share an atom of
their affections. The relation of master and scholar forbids
this. Ho'iv pleasing this tfiust be to you, hoiv I envy your
feelings, my friends will sometmies say to me, when they
see young men, whom I have educated, return after some
years' absence from school, their eyes shining with pleasure,
while they shake hands with their old master, bringing a
present of game to me, or a toy to my wife, and thanking
me in the warmest terms for my care of their education.
A holiday is begged for the boys ; the house is a scene of
happiness ; I, only, am sad, at heart. — This fine-spirited and
warm-hearted youth, who fancies he repays his master with
gratitude for the care of his boyish years — this young man
— in the eight long years I watched over him with a parent's
anxiety, never could repay me with one look of genuine
feeling. He was proud, when I praised ; he was sub-
missive, when I reproved him ; but he did never love me —
and what he now mistakes for gratitude and kindness for
me, is but the pleasant sensation, which all persons feel at
revisiting the scene of their boyish hopes and fears ; and
the seeing on equal terms the man they were accustomed
to look up to with reverence. My wife too," this interest-
ing correspondent goes on to say, "my once darling Anna,
is the wife of a schoolmaster. — When I married her — know-
ing that the wife of a schoolmaster ought to be a busy
notable creature, and fearing that my gentle Anna would
ill supply the loss of my dear bustling mother, just then
dead, who never sat still, was in every part of the house in
a moment, and whom I was obliged sometimes to threaten
to fasten down in a chair, to .save her from fatiguing herself
to death — I expressed my fears, that I was bringing her
into a way of life unsuitable to her; and she, who loved
me tenderly, promised for my sake to exert herself to per-
form the duties of her new situation. She promised, and
she has kept her word. What wonders will not a woman's
love perform ? — My house is managed with a propriety and
decorum, unknown in other schools ; my boys are well fed,
look healthy, and have every proper accommodation ; and
all this performed with a careful economy, that never
descends to meanness. But I have lost my gentle, helpless
Anna ! — When we sit down to enjoy an hour of repose after
the fatigue of the day, I am compelled to listen to what
have been her useful (and they are really useful) employ
64
Valentine's Day
ments through the day, and what she proposes for her to-
morrow's task. Her heart and her features are changed by
the duties of her situation. To the boys she never appears
other than the master's wife, and she looks up to me as the
boys' master ; to whom all show of love and affection would
be highly improper, and unbecoming the dignity of her
situation and mine. Yet this my gratitude forbids me to
hint to her. For my sake she submitted to be this altered
creature, and can I reproach her for it?" — For the com-
munication of this letter, I am indebted to my cousin
Bridget.
VALENTINE'S DAY.
Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine !
Great is thy name in the rubric, thou venerable Arch-
flamen of Hymen ! Immortal Go-between ! who and what
manner of person art thou? Art thou but a name, typify-
ing the restless principle which impels poor humans to seek
perfection in union? or wert thou indeed a mortal prelate,
with thy tippet and thy rochet, tliy apron on, and decent
lawn sleeves? Mysterious personage! like unto thee,
assuredly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar ;
not Jerome, nor Ambrose, nor Cyril ; nor the consigner of
undipt infants to eternal torments, Austin, whom all
mothers hate; nor he who hated all mothers, Origen ; nor
Bishop Bu'l, nor Archbishop Parker, nor Whitgift. Thou
comest attended with thousands and ten thousands of little
Loves, and the air is
Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings.
Singing Cupids are thy choristers and thy precentors ; and
instead of the crosier, the mystical arrow is borne before
thee.
In other words, this is the day on which those charming
little missives, ycleped Val-. Mines, cross and intercross each
other at every street and turning. The weary and all for-
spent twopenny postman sinks beneath a load of delicate
embarrassments, not his own. It is scarcely credible to
what an extent this ephemeral courtship is carried on in
this loving town, to the great enrichment of porters, and
E 65
The Essays of Elia
detriment of knockers and bell-wires. In these little visual
interpretations, no emblem is so common as the hearty —
that little three-cornered exponent of all our hopes and
fears, — the bestuck and bleeding heart ; it is twisted and
tortured into more allegories and affectations than an opera
hat. What authority we have in history or mythology for
placing the headquarters and metropolis of God Cupid in
this anatomical seat rather than in any other, is not very
clear; but we have got it, and it will serve as well as any
other. Else we might easily imagine, upon some other
system which might have prevailed for any thing which our
pathology knows to the contrary, a lover addressing his
mistress, in perfect simplicity of feeling, " Madam, my liver
and fortune are entirely at your disposal ; " or putting a
delicate question, "Amanda, have you a midriff to bestow ? "
But custom has settled these things, and awarded the seat
of sentiment to the aforesaid triangle, while its less fortunate
neighbours wait at animal and anatomical distance.
Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all
rural sounds, exceed in interest a k?wck at the door. It
" gives a very echo to the throne where Hope is seated."
But its issues seldom answer to this oracle within. It is so
seldom that just the person we want to see comes. But of
all the clamorous visitations the welcomest in expectation
is the sound that ushers in, or seems to usher in, a
Valentine. As the raven himself was hoarse that
announced the fatal entrance of Duncan, so the knock of
the postman on this day is light, airy, confident, and be-
fitting one that bringeth good tidings. It is less mechanical
than on other days; you will say, "That is not the post I
am sure." Visions of Love, of Cupids, of Hymens ! —
delightful eternal common-places, which "having been will
always be ; " which no school-boy nor school-man can write
away ; having your irreversible throne in the fancy and
affections — what are your transports, when the happy
maiden, opening with careful finger, careful not to break
the emblematic seal, bursts upon the sight of some well-
designed allegory, some type, some youthful fancy, not
without verses —
Lovers all,
A niadrig.il,
or some such device, not over abundant in sense — young
66
Valentine's Day
Love disclaims it, — and not quite silly — something between
wind and water, a chorus where the sheep might almost
join the shepherd, as they did, or as I apprehend they
did, in Arcadia.
All Valentines are not foolish ; and I shall not easily
forget thine, my kind friend (if I may have leave to call
you so) E. B.' — E. B. lived opposite a young maiden,
whom he had often seen, unseen, from his parlour window
in C — e Street. She was all joyousness and innocence,
and just of an age to enjoy receiving a Valentine, and just
of a temper to bear the disappointment of missing one with
good humour. E. B. is an artist of no common powers;
in the fancy parts of designing, perhaps inferior to none;
his name is known at the bottom of many a well-executed
vignette in the way of his profession, but no further; for
E. B. is modest, and the world meets nobody hali-way.
E. B. meditated how he could repay this young maiden
for many a favour which she had done him unknown ; for
when a kindly face greets us, though but passing by, and
never knows us again, nor we it, we should feel it as an
obli-av on ; and E. B. did. This good artist set himself at
work to please the damsel. It was just before Valentine's
day three years since. He wrought, unseen and unsus-
pected, a wondrous work. We need not say it was on the
finest gilt paper with borders — full, not of common hearts
and heartless allegory, but all the prettiest stories of love
from Ovid, and older poets than Ovid (for E. B. is a
scholar). There was Pyramus and Thisbe, and be sure
Dido was not forgot, nor Hero and Leander, and swans
more than sang in Cayster, wiih mottos and fanciful devices,
such as besermed, — a work in short of magic. Iris dipt
the woof. This on Valentine's eve he commended to the
all-swallowing indiscriminate orifice — (O ignoble trust !) —
of the common post; but the humble medium did its duty,
and from his watchful stand, the next morning, he saw the
cheerful messenger knock, and by and by the precious
charge delivered. He saw, unseen, the happy girl unfold
the Valentine, dance about, clap her hands, as one after
one the pretty emblems unfolded themselves. She danced
about, not with light love, or foolish expectations, for she
had no lover ; or, if she had, none she knew that could
have created those bright images which delighted her. It
[' Edward Burney.]
67
The Essays of Elia
was more like some fairy present ; a God-send, as our
familiarly pious ancestors termed a benefit received, where
the benefactor was unknown. It would do her no harm.
It would do her good for ever after. Jt is good to love the
unknown. I only give this as a specimen of E. B. and his
modest way of doing a concealed kindness.
Oood-morrow to my Valentine, sings poor Ophelia; and
no better wish, but with better auspices, we wish to all
faithful lovers, who are not too wise to despise old legends,
but are content to rank themselves humble diocesans of
old Bishop Valentine, and his true church.
IMPERFECT SYMPATHIES.
I am of a constitution so general, that it consorts and sympathiselh with
all things ; I iiave no antipathy, or ratlier idiosyncracy in anything
Tho>(; national repugnances do not touch me, nor do I behold with
prejudice the French, Italian, Spaniard, or Dutch. — Reliq'io Medici.
That the author of the Religio Medici, mounted upon the
airy stilts of abstraction, conversant about notional and
conjectural essences ; in whose categories of Being the
possible took the upper hand of the actual ; should have
overlooked the impertinent individualities of such poor
concretions as mankind, is not much to be admired. It is
rather to be wondered at, that in the genus of animals he
should have condescended to distinguish that species at all.
For myself — earth-bound and fettered to the scene of my
activities, —
Standing on earth, not rapt above the shy,
I confess that I do feel the differences of mankind, national
or individual, to an unhealthy excess. I can look with no
indifferent eye upon things or persons. Whatever is, is to
me a matter of taste or distaste ; or when once it becomes
indifferent, it begins to be disrelishing. I am, in plainer
words, a bundle of prejudices — made up of likings and
dislikiniis — the veriest thrall to sympathies, apathies,
antipathies. In a certain sense, I hope it may be said of
me that I am a lover of my species. I can feel for all
indifferently, but I cannot feel towards all equally. The
more purely-English word that expresses sympathy will
68
Imperfect Sympathies
better explain my meaning. I can be a friend to a worthy
man, who upon another account cannot be my mate or
felloiv. I cannot like all people alike.'
I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and
am obliged to desist from the ex{;)eriment in despair.
They cannot like me — and in truth, I never knew one of
that nation who attempted to do it. There is something
more plain and ingenuous in their mode of proceeding.
We know one another at first sight. There is an order of
imperfect intellects (under which mine must be content to
rank) which in its constitution is essentially anti-Caledonian.
The owners of the sort of faculties I allude to, have minds
rather suggestive than comprehensive. They have no
pretences to much clearness or precision in their ideas, or
in their manner of expressing them. Their intellectual
wardrobe (to confess fairly) has few whole pieces in it.
They are content with fragments and scattered pieces of
Truth. She presents no full front to them — a feature or
side-face at the most. Hints and glimpses, germs and
crude essays at a system, is the utmost they pretend to.
They beat up a little game peradventure — and leave it to
knottier heads, more robust constitutions, to run it down.
The light that lights them is not steady and polar, but
' I would be understood as confining myself to the subject of imperfect
sympathies. To nations or classes of men there can be no direct
antipathy. There may be individuals born and constellated so opposite
to another individual nature, that the same sphere cannot hold them.
I have met with my moral antipodes, and can believe the story of two
persons meeting (who never saw one another before in their lives) and
instantly fighting.
-We by proof find there should be
'Twixt man and man such an antipathy,
That though he can show no just reason why
For any former wrong or injury,
Can neither find a blemish in his fame,
Nor aught in face or feature justly blame,
Can challenge or accuse him of no evil,
Yet notwithstanding hates him as a d-evil.
The lines are from old Heywood's " Hierarchie of Angels," and he sub-
joins a curious story in confirmation, of a Spaniard wlio attempted to
assassinate a King Ferdinand of Spain, and being put to the rack could
give no other reason for the deed but an inveterate antipathy which he
had taken to the first sight of the King
■ The cause which to that act compell'd him
Was, he ne'er loved him since he first beheld him.
69
The Essays of Elia
mutable and shifting ; waxing', and again waning. Their
conversation is accordingly. They will throw out a random
word in or out of season, and be content to let it pass foi
what it is worth. They cannot speak always as if they
were upon their oath — but must be understood, speaking
or writing, with some abatement. They seldom wait to
mature a proposition, but e'en bring it to market in the
green ear. They delight to impart their defective dis-
coveries as they arise, without waiting for their full develop-
ment. They are no systematisers, and would but err more
by attempting it. Their minds, as I said before, are
suggestive merely. The brain of a true Caledonian (if I
am not mistaken) is constituted upon quite a different plan.
His Mmerva is born in panoply. You are never admitted
to see his ideas in their growth — if, indeed, they do grow,
and are not rather put together upon principles of clock-
work. You never catch his mind in an undress. He never
hints or suggests any thing, but unlades his stock of ideas
in perfect order and completeness. He brings his total
wealth into company, and gravely unpacks it. His riches
are alwavs about him. He never stoops to catch a glitter-
ing something in your presence, to share it with you, before
he quite knows whether it be true touch or not. You
cannot cry halves to any thing that he finds. He does not
find, but bring. You never witness his first apprehension
ofathmg. His understanding is always at its meridian —
you never see the first dawn, the early streaks. — He has no
falterinL!S of self-suspicion. Surmises, guesses, misgivings,
half-intuitions, semi-consciousnesses, partial illuminations,
dim instincts, embryo conceptions, have no place in his
brain, or vocabulary. The twilight of dubiety never falls
upon him. Is he orthodox — he has no doubts. Is he an
infidel — he has none either. Between the affirmative and
the negative there is no border-land with him. You cannot
hover with him upon the confines of truth, or wander in
the maze of a probable argument. He always keeps the
path. You cannot make excursions with him — for he sets
you right. His taste never fluctuates. His morality never
abates. He cannot compromise, or understand middle
actions. There can be but a right and a wrong. His
conversation is as a book. His affirmations have the
sanctity of an oath. You must sj eak upon the square with
him. He stops a metaphor like a suspected person in an
70
Imperfect Sympathies
enemy's country. " A healthy book ! " — said one of his
countrymen to me, who had ventured to give that appella-
tion to John Buncle, — "did I catch rightly what you said ?
I have heard of a man in health, and of a healthy state of
body, but I do not see how that epithet can be properly
applied to a book." Above all, you must beware of indirect
expressions before a Caledonian. Clap an extinguisher
upon your irony, if you are unl-iappily blest with a vein of it.
Remember you are upon your oath. I have a print of a
graceful female after Leonardo da Vinci, which I was
showing off to Mr. * * * *, After he had examined it
minutely, I ventured to ask him how he liked my beauty
(a foolish name it goes by among my friends) — when he
very gravely assured me, that " he had considerable respect
for my character and talents " (so he was pleased to say),
"but had not given himself much thought about the degree
of my personal pretensions." The misconception staggered
me, but did not seem much to disconcert him. — Persons of
this nation are particularly fond of affirming a truth — which
nobody doubts. They do not so properly affirm, as
annunciate. They do indeed appear to have such a love
of truth (as if, like virtue, it were valuable for itself) that all
truth becomes equally valuable, whether the proposition
that contains it be new or old, disputed, or such as is
impossible to become a subject of disputation. I was
present not long since at a party of North Britons, where a
son of Burns was expected ; and happened to drop a silly
expression (in my South British way), that I wished it were
the father instead of the son — when four of them started
up at once to inform me, that "that was impossible, because
he was dead." An impracticable wish, it seems, was more
than they could conceive. Swift has hit off this part of
their character, namely their love of truth, in his biting way,
but with an illiberality that necessarily confines the passages
to the margin.' The tediousness of these people is cer-
* There are some people who think they sufficiently acquit themselves
and entertain their company, with relating facts of no consequence, not
at all out of the road of such common incidents as happen every day;
and this I have observed more frequently among the Scots than any
other nation , who are very careful not to omit the minutest circumstances
of time or place; which kind of discnurse, if it were not a little relieved
by the uncouth terms and phrases, as well as accent and gesture peculiar
to that country, would be hardly tolerable. — Hints towards an Essay
on Conversation.
71
The Essays of Elia
tainly provoking. I wonder if they ever tire one another ! —
In my early Hfe I had a passionate fondness for the poetry
of Burns. I have sometimes foolishly hoped to ingratiate
myself with his countrymen by expressing it. But I have
always found that a true Scot resents your admiration of
his compatriot, even more than he would your contempt of
him. The latter he imputes to your " imperfect acquaintance
with many of the words which he uses; "and the same
objection makes it a presumption in you to suppose that
you can admire him. — Thomson they seem to have for-
gotten. Smollett they have neither forgotten nor forgiven
for his delineation of Rory and his companion, upon their
first introduction to our metropolis. — Speak of Smollett as
a great genius, and they will retort upon you Hume's
History compared with his Continuation of it. What if
the historian had continued "Humphrey Clinker"?
I have, in the abstract, no disrespect for Jews. They
are a piece of stubborn antiquity, compared with which
Stonehenge is in its nonage. They date beyond the
pyramids. But I should not care to be in habits of familiar
intercourse with any of that nation. I confess that I have
not the nerves to enter their synagogues. Old prejudices
cling about me. I cannot shake off the story of Hugh of
Lincoln. Centuries of injury, contempt, and hate, on the
one side, — of cloaked revenge, dissimulation, and hate, on
the other, between our and their fathers, must, and ought
to affect the blood of the children. I cannot believe it can
run clear and kindly yet ; or that a few fine words, such as
candour, liberality, the light of a nineteenth century, can
close up the breaches of so deadly a disunion. A Hebrew
is nowhere congenial to me. He is least distasteful on
'Change — for the mercantile spirit levels all distinctions, as
all are beauties in the dark. I boldly confess that I do
not relish the approximation of Jew and Christian, which
has become so fashionable. The reciprocal endearments
have, to me, something hypocritical and unnatural in them.
I do not like to see the Church and Synagogue kissing and
congeeing in awkward postures of an affected civility. If
iliey are converted, why do they not come over to us
altogether? Why keep up a form of separation, when the
life of it is fled? If they can sit with us at table, why do
they keck at our cookery? I do not understand these half
convertites. Jews christianising — Christians judaising — ■
72
Imperfect Sympathies
puzzle me. I like fish or flesh. A moderate Jew is a more
confounding piece of anomaly than a wet Quaker. The
spirit of the synagogue is essentially separative. B ^
would have been more in keeping if he had abided by the
faith of his forefathers. There is a fine scorn in his face,
jvhich nature meant to be of Christians. The Hebrew
spirit is strong in him, in spite of his proselytism. He
cannot conquer the Shibboleth. How it breaks out, when
he sings, "The Children of Israel passed through the Red
Sea ! " The auditors, for the moment, are as Egyptians to
him, and he rides over our necks in triumph. There is no
mistaking him. — B has a strong expression of sense in
his countenance, and it is confirmed by his singing. The
foundation of his vocal excellence is sense. He sings with-
understanding, as Kemble delivered dialogue. He would
sing the Commandments, and give an appropriate character
to each prohibition. His nation, in general, have not
over-sensible countenances. How should they? — but you
seldom see a silly expression among them. Gain, and the
pursuit of gain, sharpen a man's visage. I never heard of
an idiot being born among them. — Some admire the Jewish
female physiognomy. I admire it — but with trembling.
Jael had those full dark inscrutable eyes.
In the Negro countenance you will often meet with
strong traits of benignity. I have felt yearnings of tender-
ness towards some of these faces — or rather masks — that
have looked out kindly upon one in casual encounters in
the streets and highways I love what Fuller beautifully
calls — these "images of God cut in ebony." But I should
not like to associate with them, to share my meals and my
good-nights with them — because they are black.
I love Quaker ways, and Quaker worship. I venerate
the Quaker principles. It does me good for the rest of the
day when I meet any of their people in my path. When I
am ruffled or disturbed by any occurrence, the sight, or
quiet voice of a Quaker, acts upon me as a ventilator,
lightening the air, and tnking off a load from the bosom.
But I cannot like the Quakers (as Desdemona would say)
" to live with them." I am all over sophisticated — with
humours, fancies, craving hourly sympathy. I must have
books, pictures, theatres, chit-chat, scandal, jokes, am-
biguities, and a thousand whim-whams, which their simpler
[' Braham.]
73
The Essays of Elia
taste can do without. I should starve at their primitive
banquet. My appetites are too high for the salads which
(according to Evelyn) Eve dressed for the angel, my gusto
too excited
To sit a guest with Daniel at his pulse.
The indirect answers which Quakers are often found to
return to a question put to them may be explained, 1 think,
without the vulgar assumption, that they are more given
to evasion and equivocating than other people. They
naturally look to thtir words more carefully, and are more
cautiouj of committing then.selves. They have a peculiar
character to keep up on this head. They stand in a
manner upon their veracity. A Quaker is by law exempted
from taking an oath. Tiie custom of resorting to an oath
in extreme cases, sanctified as it is by all religious antiquity,
is a[)t (it must be confessed) to introduce into the laxer
sort of minds the notion of two kinds of truth — the one
applicable to the solemn affairs of justice, and the other to
tne common proceedings of daily intercourse. As truth
bound upon the conscience by an oath can be but truth, so
in the common affirmations of the shop and the market-
place a latitude is expected, and conceded upon questions
wanting this solemn covenant. Somethmg less than truth
satisfies. It is common to hear a person say, " You do not
expect me to speak as if I were upon my oath." Hence a
great deal of incorrectness and inadvertency, short of false-
hood, creeps into ordinary conversation ; and a kind of
secondary or laic-truth is tolerated, where clergy-truth —
oath-truth, by the nature of the circumstances, is not
required. A Quaker knows none of this distinction. His
simple affirmation being received, upon the most sacred
occasions without any further test, stamps a value upon
the words which he is to use upon the most indifferent
topics of life. He looks to them, naturally, with more
severity. You can have of him no more than his word.
He knows, if he is caught tripping in a casual expression,
he forfeits, for himself, at least, his claim to the invidious
exem|)tion. He knows that his syllables are weighed — and
how far a consciousness of this particular watchfulness,
exerted against a person, has a tendency to produce
indirect answers, and a diverting of the question by honest
means might be illustrated, and the practice justified, by
74
Imperfect Sympathies
a more sacred example than is proper to be adduced upon
this occasion. The admirable presence of mind, which is
notorious in Quakers upon all contingencies, might be
traced to this imposed self-watchfulness — if it did not seem
rather an humble and secular scion of that old stock of
religious constancy, which never bent or faltered in the
Primitive Friends, or gave way to the winds of persecution,
to the violence of judge or accuser, under trials and racking
examinations. " You will never be the wiser, if I sit here
answering your questions till midnight," said one of those
upright Justices to Penn, who had been putting law-cases
with a puzzling subtlety. " Thereafter as the answers may
be," retoited the Quaker. The astonishing composure of
this people is sometimes ludicrously displayed in lighter
instances. — I was travelling in a stage coach with three
male Quakers, buttoned up in the straitest non-conformity
of their sect. We stopped to bait at Andover, where a
meal, partly tea apparatus, partly supper, was set before
us. My friends confined themselves to the tea-table. I in
my way took supper. When the landlady brought in the
bill, the eldest of my companions discovered that she had
charged for both meals. This was resisted. Mine hostess
was very clamorous and positive. Some mild arguments
were used on the part of the Quakers, for which the heated
mind of the good lady seemed by no means a fit recipient.
The guard came in with his usual peremptory notice. The
Quakers pulled out their money, and formally tendered it
— so much for tea — I, in humble imitation, tendering
mine — for the supper which I had taken. She would not
relax in her demand. So they all three quietly put up
their silver, as did myself, and marched out of the room,
the eldest and gravest going first, with myself closing up
the rear, who thought I could not do better than follow the
example of such grave and warrantable personages. We
got in. The steps went up. The coach drove off. The
murmurs of mine hostess, not very indistinctly or ambigu-
ously pronounced, became after a time inaudible — and
now my conscience, which the whimsical scene had for a
time suspended, beginning to give some twitches, I waited,
in the hope that some justification would be offered by
these serious persons for the seeming injustice of their
conduct. To my great surprise, not a syllable was dropped
on the subject. They sat as mute as at a meeting. At
75
The Essays of Elia
length the eldest of them broke silence, by inquiring of his
next neighbour, " Hast thee heard how indigos go at the
India House?" and the question operated as a soporific on
mv moral feeling as far as Exeter.
WITCHES, AND OTHER NIGHT-FEARS.
We are too hasty when we set down our ancestors in the
gross for fools, for the monstrous inconsistencies (as they
seem to us) involved in their creed of witchcratt. In the
relations of this visible world we find them to have been as
rational, and shrewd to detect an historic anomaly, as
ourselves. But when once the invisible world was supposed
to be opened, and the lawless agency of bad spirits
assumed, what measures of probability, of decency, of
fitness, or proportion — of that which distinguishes the
likely from the palpable absurd — could they have to guide
them in the rejection or admission of any particular
testimony? — that maidens pined away, wasting inwardly
as their waxen images consumed before a fire — that corn
was lodged, and cattle lamed — that whirlwinds uptore in
diabolic revelry the oaks of the forest — or that spits and
kettles only danced a fearful-innocent vagary about some
rustic's kitchen when no wind was stirring — were all
equally probable where no law of agency was understood.
Tliat the prince of the powers of darkness, passing by the
flower and pomp of the earth, should lay preposterous
Kie.;e to the weak fantasy of indigent eld — has neither
likelihood nor unlikelihood d priori to us, who have no
measure to guess at his policy, or standard to estimate
what rate those anile souls may fetch in the devil's
market. Nor, when the wicked are expressly symbolised
by a goat, was it to be wondered at so much, that he
should come sometimes in that body, and assert his
metaphor. — That the intercourse was opened at all
between both worlds was perhaps the mistake — but that
once assumed, I see no reason for disbelieving one attested
story of this nature more than another on the score of
absurdity. There is no law to judge of the lawless, or
canon by which a dream may be criticised.
I have sometimes thouglit that I could not have existed
76
Witches, and other Night-fears
in the days of received witchcraft ; that I could not have
slept in a village where one of those reputed hags dwelt.
Our ancestors were bolder or more obtuse. Amidst the
universal belief that these wretches were in league with the
author of all evil, holding hell tributary to their muttering,
no simple Justice of the Peace seems to have scrupled
issuing, or silly Headborough serving, a warrant upon
them — as if they should subpoena Satan ! — Prospero in
his boat, with his books and wand about him, suffers him-
self to be conveyed away at the mercy of his enemies to
an unknown island. He might have raised a storm or
two, we think, on the passage. His acquiescence is in
exact analogy to the non-resistance of wiiches to the con-
stituted powers. — What stops the Fiend in Spenser from
tearing Guyon to pieces — or who had made it a condition
of his prey, that Guyon must take assay of the glorious
bait — we have no guess. We do not know the laws of
that country.
From my childhood I was extremely inquisitive about
witches and witch-stories. My maid, and more legendary
aunt, supplied me with good store. But I shall mention
the accident which directed my curiosity originally into
this channel. In my father's book-closet, the History of
the Bible, by Stackhouse, occupied a distinguished station.
The pictures with which it abounds — one of the ark, in
particular, and another of Solomon's temple, delineated
with all the fidelity of ocular admeasurement, as if the artist
had been upon the spot — attracted my childish attention.
There was a picture, too, of the Witch raising up Samuel,
which I wish that I had never seen. We shall come to
that hereafter. Stackhouse is in two huge tomes — and
there was a pleasure in removing folios of that magnitude,
which, with infinite straining, was as much as I could
manage, from the situation which they occupied upon an
upper shelf. I have not met with the work from that time
to this, but I remember it consisted of Old Testament
stories, orderly set down, with the objection appended to
each story, and the solution of the objection regularly
tacked to that. The objection was a summary of whatever
difficulties had been opposed to the credibility of the
history, by the shrewdness of ancient or modern infidelity,
drawn up with an almost complimentary excess of candour.
The solution was brief, modest, and satisfactory. The
n
The Essays of Elia
bane and antidote were both before you. To doubts so
put, and so quashed, there seemed to be an end for ever.
The dragon lay dead, for the foot of the veriest babe to
trample on. But — like as was rather feared than realised
from that slain monster in Spenser — from the womb of
those crushed errors young dragonets would creep, exceed-
ing the prowess of so tender a Saint George as myself to
vanquish. The habit of expecting objections to every
passage, set me upon starting more objections, for the
glory of finding a solution of my own for them. I became
staggered and perplexed, a sceptic in long coats. The
pretty Bible stories which I had read, or heard read in
church, lost their purity and sincerity of impression, and
were turned into so many historic or chronologic theses to
be defended against whatever impugners. I was not to
disbelieve them, but — the next thing to that — I was to be
quite sure that some one or other would or had dis-
believed them. Next to making a child an infidel, is the
letting him know that there are infidels at all. Credulity
is the man's weakness, but the child's strength. O, how
ugly sound scriptural doubts from the mouth of a babe
and a suckling! — I should have lost" myself in these mazes,
and have pined away, I think, with such unfit sustenance
as these husks afforded, but for a fortunate piece of ill-
fortune, which about this time befel me. Turning over
the picture of the ark with too much haste, I unhappily
made a breach in its ingenious fabric — driving my incon-
siderate fingers right through the two larger quadrupeds —
the elephant, and the camel — that stare (as well they
might) out of the two last windows next the steerage in
that unique piece of naval architecture. Stackhouse was
lienceforth locked up, and became an interdicted treasure.
With the book, the objections and solutions gradually cleared
out of my head, and have seldom returned since in any
force to trouble me. — But there was one impression which
I had imbibed from Stackhouse, which no lock or bar
could shut out, and which was destined to try my childish
nerves rather more seriously. — That detestable picture !
I was dreadfully alive to nervous terrors. The night-
time solitude, and the dark, were my hell. The sufferings
I endured in this nature would justify the expression. I
never laid my head on my pillow, I suppose, from the
fourth to the seventh or eighth year of my life — so far as
Witches, and other Night-fears
memory serves in things so long ago — without an assurance,
which realised its own prophecy, of seeing some frightful
spectre. Be old Stackhouse then acquitted in part, if I
say, that to his picture of the Witch raising up Samuel —
(O that old man covered with a mantle !) I owe — not my
midnight terrors, the hell of my infancy — but the shape
and manner of their visitation. It was he who dressed up
for me a hag that nightly sate upon my pillow — a sure bed-
fellow, when my aunt or my maid was far from me. All
day long, while the book was permitted me, I dreamed
waking over his delineation, and at ni^jht (if I may use so
bold an expression) awoke into sleep, and found the vision
true. I durst not, even in the daylight, once enter the
chamber where I slept, without my face turned to the
window, aversely from the bed where my witch-ridden
pillow was. — I'arents do not know what they do when they
leave tender babes alone to go to sleep in the dark. The
feeling about for a friendly arm — the hoping for a familiar
voice — when they wake screaming — and find none to soothe
them — what a terrible shaking it is to their poor nerves !
The keeping them up till midnight, through candle-light
and the unwholesome hours, as they are called, — would, I
am satisfieii, in a medical point of view, prove the better
caution. — That detestable picture, as I have said, gave the
fashion to my dreams — if dreams they were — for the scene
of them was invariably the room in which I lay. Had I
never met with the picture, the fears would have come self-
pictured in some shape or other —
Headless bear, black man, or ape —
but, as it was, my imaginations took that form. — It is not
book, or picture, or the stories of foolish servants, which
create these terrors in children. They can at most but
give them a direction. Dear little T. H.^ who of all
children has been brought up with the most scrupulous
exclusion of every taint of superstition — who was never
allowed to hear of goblin or apparition, or scarcely to be
told of bad men, or to read or hear of any distressing story —
finds all this world of fear, from which he has been so rigidly
excluded ab extra, in his own "thick-coming fancies;"
and from his little midnight pillow, this nurse-child of
[1 Thornton Hunt.]
79
The Essays of Elia
optimism will start at shapes, unborrowed of tradition, in
sweats to which the reveries of the cell-damned murderer
are tranquillity.
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras — dire stories of
Celaeno and the Harpies — may reproduce themselves in
the brain of superstition — but they were there before.
They are transcripts, types — the archetypes are in us, and
eternal. How else should the recital of that, which we
know in a waking sense to be false, come to affect us at
all ?— or
Names, whose sense we see not,
Fray us with things that be not ?
Is it that we naturally conceive terror from such objects,
considered in their capacity of being able to inflict upon us
bodily injury? — O, least of all ! These terrors are of older
standing. They date beyond body — or, without the body,
they would have been the same. All the cruel, tormenting,
defined devils in Dante — tearing, mangling, choking,
stifling, scorching demons — are they one half so fearful to
the spirit of a man, as the simple idea of a spirit unembodied
following him —
Like one that on a lontsomc road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turn'd round, walks on,
And turns no more his head ;
Because he knovvs a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.'
That the kind of fear here treated of is purely spiritual —
that it is strong in proportion as it is objectless upon earth
— that it predominates in the period of sinless infancy —
are difficulties, the solution of which might afford some
probable insight into our ante-mundane condition, and a
peep at least into the shadow-land of pre-existence.
My night-fancies have long ceased to be afflictive. I
confess an occasional night-mare ; but I do not, as in early
youth, keep a stud of them. Fiendish faces, with the
extinguished taper, will come and look at me; but I know
them for mockeries, even while I cannot elude their
presence, and I fight and grapple with them. For the
credit of my imagination, I am almost ashamed to say
' Mr. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner.
80
Witches, and other Night-fears
how tame and prosaic my dreams are grown. They are
never romantic, seldom even rural. They are of archi-
tecture and of buildings — cities abroad, which I have
never seen, and hardly have hope to see. I have traversed,
for the seeming length of a natural day, Rome, Amsterdam,
Paris, Lisbon — their churches, palaces, squares, market-
places, shops, suburbs, ruins, wiih an inexpressible sense
of delight — a map-like distinctness of trace — and a daylight
vividness of vision, that was all but being awake. — I have
formerly travelled among the Westmoreland fells — my
highest Alps, — but they are objects too mighty for the
grasp of my dreaming recognition; and I have again and
again awoke with ineffectual struggles of the inner eye, to
make out a shape in any way whatever, of Helvellyn.
Methought I was in that country, but the mountains were
gone. The poverty of my dreams mortifies me. There is
Coleridge, at his will can conjure up icy domes, and
pleasure-houses for Kubla Khan, and Abyssinian maids,
and songs of Abara, and caverns,
Where Alph, the sacred river, runs,
to solace his night solitudes — when I cannot muster a fiddle.
Barry Cornwall has his tritons and his nereids gamboling
before him in nocturnal visions, and proclaiming sons
born to Neptune — when my stretch of imaginative activity
can hardly, in the night season, raise up the ghost of a
fish-wife. To set my failures in somewhat a mortifying
light — it was after reading the noble Dream of this poet,
that my fancy ran strong upon these marine spectra; and
the poor plastic power, such as it is, within me set to work,
to humour my folly in a sort of dream that very night.
Methought I was upon the ocean billows at some sea
nuptials, riding and mounted high, with the customary
train sounding their conchs before me, (I myself, you may
be sure, the leading god^ and jollily we went careering over
the main, till just where Ino Lucothea should have greeted
me (I think it was Ino) with a white embrace, the billows
gradually subsiding, fell from a sea-roughness to a sea-calm,
and thence to a river-motion, and that river (as happens in
the familiarisation of dreams) was no other than the gentle
Thames, which landed me, in the wafture of a placid wave
or two, alone, safe and inglorious, somewhere at the foot
of Lambeth palace.
F 8i
The Essays of Elia
The degree of the soul's creativeness in sleep might
furnish no whimsical criterion of the quantum of poetical
faculty resident in the same soul waking. An old gentle-
man, a friend of mine, and a humorist, used to carry this
notion so far, that when he saw any stripling of his
acquaintance ambitious of becoming a poet, his first
question would be, — "Young man, what sort of dreams
have you ? " I have so much faith in my old friend's
theory, that when I feel that idle vein returning upon me,
I presently subside into my proper element of prose,
remembering those eluding nereids, and that inauspicious
inland landing.
MY RELATIONS.
I AM arrived at that point of life, at which a man may
account it a blessing, as it is a singularity, if he have either
of his parents surviving. I have not that felicity — and
sometimes think feelingly of a passage in Browne's Christian
Morals, where he speaks of a man that hath lived sixty or
seventy years in the world. "In such a compass of time,"
he says, "a man may have a close apprehension what it is
to be forgotten, when he hath lived to find none who could
remember his father, or scarcely the friends of his youth,
and may sensibly see with what a face in no long time
Oblivion will look upon himself."
I had an aunt, a dear and good one. She was one whom
single blessedness had soured to the world. She often
used to say, that I was the only thing in it which she loved ;
and, when she thought I was quitting it, she grieved over
me with mother's tears. A partiality quite so exclusive my
reason cannot altogether approve. She was from morning
till night poring over good books, and devotional exercises.
Her favourite volumes were Thomas h Ivcmpis, in Stanhope's
Translation ; and a Roman Catholic Prayer Book, with the
matins and co7tiplines regularly set down, — terms which I
was at that time too young to understand. She persisted
in reading them, although admonished daily concerning their
Papistical tendency; and went to church every Sabbath, as
a good Protestant should do. These were the only books
slie studied; though, I think, at one period of her life, she
told me, she had read with great satisfaction the Adventures
82
My Relations
of an Unfortunate Young Nobleman. Finding the door of
the chapel in Essex Street open one day — it was in the in-
fancy of that heresy — she went in, liked the sermon, and the
manner of worship, and frequented it at intervals for some
time after. She came not for doctrinal points, and never
missed them. With some little asperities in her constitution,
which I have above hinted at, she was a steadfast, friendly
being, and a fine old Christian. She was a woman of
strong sense, and a shrewd mind — extraordinary at a
repartee; one of the few occasions of her breaking silence
—else she did not much value wit. The only secular
employment I remember to have seen her engaged in, was,
the splitting of French beans, and dropping them into a
China basin of fair water. The odour of those tender
vegetables to this day comes back upon my sense, redolent
of soothing recollections. Certainly it is the most delicate
of culinary operations.
Male aunts, as somebody calls them, I had none — to
remember. By the uncle's side I may be said to have been
born an orphan. Brother, or sister, I never had any — to
know them. A sister, I think, that should have been
Elizabeth, died in both our infancies. What a comfort, or
what a care, may I not have missed in her ! — But I have
cousins, sprinkled about in Hertfordshire — besides two,
with whom I have been all my life in habits of the closest
intimacy, and whom I may term cousins par excellence.
These are ^ James and Bridget Elia. They are older than
myself by twelve, and ten, years ; and neither of them seems
disposed, in matters of advice and guidance, to waive any of
the prerogatives which primogeniture confers. May they
continue still in the same mind ; and when they shall be
seventy-five, and seventy-three years old (I cannot spare
them sooner), persist in treating me in my grand climacteric
precisely as a stripling, or younger brother I
James is an inexplicable cousin. Nature hath her unities,
which not every critic can penetrate; or, if we feel, we
cannot explain them. The pen of Yorick, and of none
since his, could have drawn J. E. entire — those fine
Shandian lights and shades, which make up his story. I
must limp after in my poor antithetical manner, as the
fates have given me grace and talent. J. E. then— to the
eye of a common observer at least — seemeth made up of
['John and Mary I^mb.]
83
The Essays of Elia
contradictory principles. — The genuine child of impulse.
the frigid philosopher of prudence — the phlegm of my
cousin's doctrine is invariably at war with his temperament,
which is high sanguine. With always some fire-new
project in his brain, J. E. is the systematic opponent of
innovation, and crier down of everything that has not stood
the test of age and experiment. With a hundred tine
notions chasing one another hourly in his fancy, he is
startled at the least approach to the romantic in others;
and, determined by his own sense in everything, com-
mends you to the guidance of common sense on all
occasions. — With a touch of the eccentric in all which he
does, or says, he is only anxious that you should not
commit yourself by doing anything absurd or singular.
On my once letting slip at table, that I was not fond of a
certain popular dish, he begged me at any rate not to say so
— for the world would think me mad. He disguises a
passionate fondness for works of high art (whereof he hath
amassed a choice collection), under the pretext of buying
only to sell again — that his enthusiam may give no
encouragement to yours. Yet, if it were so, why does that
piece of tender, pastoral Dominichino hang still by his
wall? — is the ball of his sight much more dear to him? —
or what picture-dealer can talk like him ?
Whereas mankind in general are observed to warp their
speculative conclusions to the bent of their individual
humours, his theories are sure to be in diametrical opposi-
tion to his constitution. He is courageous as Charles of
Sweden, upon instinct; chary of his person, upon principle,
as a travelling Quaker. — He has been preaching up to me,
all my life, the doctrine of bowing to the great — the
necessity of forms, and manner, to a man's getting on in
the world. He himself never aims at either, that I can
discover, — and has a spirit, that would stand upright in the
presence of the Cham of Tartary. It is pleasant to hear
him discourse of patience — extolling it as the truest wisdom
— and to see him during the last seven minutes that his
dinner is getting ready. Nature never ran up in her haste
a more restless piece of workmanship than when she
moulded this impetuous cousin — and Art never turned out
a more elaborate orator than he can display himself to be,
upon his favourite topic of the advantages of quiet, and
contentedncss in the state, whatever it be, that we are
84
My Relations
placed in. He is triumphant on this theme, when he has
you safe in one of those short stages that ply for the western
road, in a very obstructing manner, at the foot of John
Murray's street — where you get in when it is empty, and
are expected to wait till the vehicle hath completed her
just freight — a trying three-quarters of an hour to some
people. He wonders at your fidgetiness, — "where could
we be better than we are, thus sittings thus consultittg}" —
"prefers, for his part, a state of rest to locomotion," —
with an eye all the while upon the coachman — till at length,
waxing out of all patience, at your want of if, he breaks
out into a pathetic remonstrance at the fellow for detaining
us so long over the time which he had professed, and de-
clares peremptorily, that " the gentleman in the coach is
determined to get out, if he does not drive on that instant."
Very quick at inventing an argument, or detecting a
sophistry, he is incapable of attending you in any chain of
arguing. Indeed he makes wild work with logic; and
seems to jump at most admirable conclusions by some
process, not at all akin to it. Consonantly enough to this,
he hath been heard to deny, upon certain occasions, that
there exists such a faculty at all in man as reason ; and
wondereth how man came first to have a conceit of it —
enforcing his negation with all the might of reasoningh.Q
is master of. He has some speculative notions against
laughter, and will maintain that laughing is not natural to
him — when peradventure the next moment his lungs shall
crow like Chanticleer. He says some of the best things in
the world — and declareth that wit is his aversion. It was
he who said, upon seeing the Eton boys at play in their
grounds — What a pity to think, that these fine ingenuous
lads in a few years will all be changed into frivolous Members
of Farlia?nent .'
His youth was fiery, glowing, tempestuous — and in age
he discovereth no symptom of cooling. This is that which
I admire in him. I hate people who meet Time half-way.
I am for no compromise with that inevitable spoiler.
While he lives, J. E. will take his swing. — It does me good,
as I walk towards the street of my daily avocation, on
some fine May morning, to inect him marching in a quite
opposite direction, with a jolly handsome presence, and
shining sanguine face, that indicates some purchase in his
eye — a Claude — or a Hobbima — for much of his enviable
8S
The Essays of Elia
leisure is consumed at Christie's, and Phillips's — or where
not, to pick up pictures, and such gauds. On these
occasions he mostly stoppeth me, to read a short lecture
on the advantage a person like me possesses above himself,
in having his time occupied with business which he must
do — assureth me that he often feels it hang heavy on his
hands — wishes he had fewer holidays — and goes off — ■
Westward Ho ! — chanting a tune, to Pall Mall — perfectly
convinced that he has convinced me — while I proceed in
my opposite direction tuneless.
It is pleasant again to see this Professor of Indifference
doing the honours of his new purchase, when he has fairly
housed it. You must view it in every light till he has
found the best — placing it at this distance, and at that, but
always suiting the focus of your sight to his own. You
must spy at it through your fingers, to catch the aerial
perspective — though you assure him that to you the land-
scape shows much more agreeable without that artifice.
Wo be to the luckless wight, who does not only not respond
to his rapture, but who should drop an unseasonable in-
timation of preferring one of his anterior bargains to the
present ! — The last is always his best hit — his "Cynthia of
the minute." Alas ! how many a mild Madonna have I
known to come in — a Raphael ! — keep its ascendency for a
few brief moons — then, after certain intermedial degrada-
tions from the front drawing-room to the back gallery,
thence to the dark parlour, — adopted in turn by each of
the Carracci, under successive lowering ascriptions of filia-
tion, mildly breaking its fall — consigned to the oblivious
lumber-room, go out at last a Lucca Giordano, or plain
Carlo Maratti ! — which things when I beheld — musing
upon the chances and mutabilities of fate below, hath
made me to reflect upon the altered condition of great
personages, or that woful Queen of Richard the Second — ■
set forth in pomp.
She came adorned hither like sweet May.
Sent back like Hollowmass or shortest dajr.
With great love for you, J. E. hath but a limited sym-
pathy with what you feel or do. He lives in a world of
his own, and makes slender guesses at what passes in your
mind. He never pierces the marrow of your habits. He
will tell an old established play-goer, that Mr. Such-a-one,
86
My Relations
of So-and-so (naming one of the theatres), is a very lively
comedian — as a piece of news ! He advertised me but the
other day of some pleasant green lanes which he had found
out for me, knowing me to be a great walker, in my own
immediate vicinity — who have haunted the identical spot
any time these twenty years ! — He has not much respect
for that class of feelings which goes by the name of senti-
mental. He applies the definition of real evil to bodily
suffering exclusively — and rejecteth all others as imaginary.
He is affected by the sight, or the bare supposition, of a
creature in pain, to a degree which I have never witnessed
out of womankind. A constitutional acuteness to this
class of sufferings may in part account for this. The
animal tribe in particular he taketh under his especial
protection. A broken-winded or spur-galled horse is sure
to find an advocate in him. An over-loaded ass is his
client for ever. He is the apostle to the brute kind — the
never-failing friend of those who have none to care for
them. The contemplation of a lobster boiled, or eels
skinned alive, will wring him so, that "all for pity he could
die." It will take the savour from his palate, and the rest
from his pillow, for days and nights. With the intense
feeling of Thomas Clarkson, he wanted only the steadiness
of pursuit, and unity of purpose, of that " true yoke-fellow
with Time," to have effected as much for the Animal, as he
hath done for the Negro Creation. But my uncontrollable
cousin is but imperfectly formed for purposes which de-
mand co-operation. He cannot wait. His amelioration-
plans must be ripened in a day. For this reason he has
cut but an equivocal figure in benevolent societies, and
combinations for the alleviation of human sufferings. His
zeal constantly makes him to outrun, and put out, his co-
adjutors. He thinks of relieving, — while they think of
debating. He was black-balled out of a society for the
Relief of * * * * *,^ because the fervour of his
humanity toiled beyond the formal apprehension, and
creeping processes, of his associates. I shall always con-
sider this distinction as a patent of nobility in the Elia
family !
Do I mention these seeming inconsistencies to smile at,
or upbraid, my unique cousin? Marry, heaven, and all
good manners, and the understanding that should be
\} Distrest Sailors.]
87
The Essays of Elia
between kinsfolk, forbid? — With all the strangenesses of
\.\a% strang;st of the Elias — I would not have him in one
jot or tittle other than he is ; neither would I barter or
exchange my wild kinsman for the most exact, regular, and
every-way consistent kinsman breathing.
In my next, reader, I may perhaps give you some
account of my cousin Bridget — if you are not already
surfeited with cousins — and take you by the hand, if
you are willing to go with us, on an excursion which we
made a summer or two since, in search of more cousins —
Through the green plains of pleasant Hertfordshire.
MACKERY END, IN HERTFORDSHIRE.
Bridget Elia has been my housekeeper for many a long
year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond
the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor
and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such toler-
able comfort, upon the whole, that I, for one, find in
myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains,
with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy. We
agree pretty well in our tastes and habits — yet so, as "with
a difference." We are generally in harmony, with occasional
bickerings — as it should be among near relations. Our
sympathies are rather understood, than expressed ; and
once, upon my disisembling a tone in my voice more kind
than ordinary, my cousin burst into tears, and complained
that I was altered. We are both great readers in different
directions. While I am hanging over (for the thousandth
time) some passage in old Burton, or one of his strange
contemporaries, she is abstracted in some modern tale, or
adventure, whereof our common reading-table is daily fed
with assiduously fresh supplies. Narrative teases me. 1
have little concern in the progress of events. She must
have a story — well, ill, or indifferently told — so there be
life stirring in it, and plenty of good or evil accidents.
The fluctuations of fortune in fiction — ^and almost in real
life — have ceased to interest, or operate but dully upon
me. Out-of-the-way humours and opinions — lieads with
some diverting twist in them — the oddities of authorship
please me most. My cousin has a native disrelish of
Mackery End, in Hertfordshire
any thing that sounds odd or bizarre. Nothing goes down
with her, that is quaint, irregular, or out of the road of
common sympathy. She "holds Nature more clever." I
can pardon her blindness to the beautiful obliquities of
the Religio Medici ; but she must apologise to me for
certain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been
pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals of
a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one — the
thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous, — but again somewhat
fantastical, and original-brain'd, generous Margaret
Newcastle.
It has been the lot of my cousin, oftener perhaps than I
could have wished, to have had for her associates and
mine, free-thinkers — leaders, and disciples, of novel phil-
osophies and systems ; but she neither wrangles with, nor
accepts, their opinions. That which was good and vener-
able to her, when a child, retains its authority over her
mind still. She never juggles or plays tricks with her
understanding.
We are both of us inclined to be a little too positive ;
and I have observed the result of our disputes to be almost
uniformly this — that in matters of fact, dates, and circum-
stances, it turns out, that I was in the right, and my cousin
in the wrong. But where we have differed upon moral
points; upon something proper to be done, or let alone;
whatever heat of opposition, or steadiness of conviction,
I set out with, I am sure always, in the long run, to be
brought over to her way of thinking.
I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a
gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her
faults. She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it)
of reading in company : at which times she will answer
yes or no to a question without fully understanding its
purport — which is provoking, and derogatory in the highest
degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question.
Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials
of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions.
When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment,
she can speak to it greatly ; but in matters which are not
stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes
to let slip a word less seasonably.
Her education in youth was not much attended to; and
she happily missed all that train of female garniture, which
89
The Essays of Elia
passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was
tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet
of good old English reading, without much selection or
prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and whole-
some pasturage. Had I twenty girls, they should be
brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether
their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it;
but I can answer for it, that it makes (if the worst come to
the worst) most incomparable old maids.
In a season of distress, she is the truest comforter; but
in the teasing accidents, and minor perplexities, which do
call out the will to meet them, she sometimes maketh
matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does
not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter
occasions of life she is sure always to treble your satisfac-
tion. She is excellent to be at a play with, or upon a visit ;
but best, when she goes a journey with you.
We made an excursion together a few summers since,
into Hertfordshire, to beat up the quarters of some of our
less-known relations in that fine corn country.
The oldest thing I remember is Mackery End; or
Mackarel End, as it is spelt, perhaps more properly, in
some old maps of Hertfordshire ; a farm-house, — delightfully
situated within a gentle walk from Wheathampstead. I
can just remember having been there, on a visit to a great-
aunt, when I was a child, under the care of Bridget; who,
as I have said, is older than myself by some ten years. I
wish that I could throw into a heap the remainder of our
joint existences, that we might share them in equal division.
But that is impossible. The house was at that time in the
occupation of a substantial yeoman, who had married my
grandmother's sister. His name was Gladman. My
grandmother was a Bruton, married to a Field. The
Gladmans and the Brutons are still flourishing in that part
of the county, but the Fields are almost extinct. Alore
than forty years had elapsed since the visit I speak of; and
for the greater portion of that period, we had lost sight of
the other two branches also. Who or what sort of persons
inherited Mackery End — kindred or strange folk — we were
afraid almost to conjecture, but determined some day to
explore.
By somewhat a circuitous route, taking the noble park
at Luton in our way from St, Alban's, we arrived at the
90
Mackery End, in Hertfordshire
spot of our anxious curiosity about noou. The sight of
the old farm-house, though every trace of it was effaced
from my recollection, affected me with a pleasure which I
had not experienced for many a year. For though / had
forgotten it, we had never forgotten being there together,
and we had been talking about Mackery End all our lives,
till memory on my part became mocked with a phantom
of itself, and I thought I knew the aspect of a place,
which, when present, O how unlike it was to that, which I
had conjured up so many times instead of it I
Still the air breathed balmily about it ; the season was in
the "heart of June," and I could say with the poet,
But thou, that didst appear so fair
To fond imagination,
Dost rival in the light of day
Her delicate creation !
Bridget's was more a waking bliss than mine, for she
easily remembered her old acquaintance again — some
altered features of course, a little grudged at. At first,
indeed, she was ready to disbelieve for joy ; but the scene
soon re-confirmed itself in her affections — and she traversed
every out-post of the old mansion, to the wood-house, the
orchard, the place where the pigeon-house had stood (house
and birds were alike flown) with a breathless impatience of
recognition, which was more pardonable perhaps than
decorous at the age of fifty odd. But Bridget in some
things is behind her years.
The only thing left was to get into the house — and that
was a difficulty which to me singly would have been in-
surmountable ; for I am terribly shy in making myself
known to strangers and out-of-date kinsfolk. Love, stronger
than scruple, winged my cousin in without me ; but she soon
returned with a creature that might have sat to a sculptor
for the image of Welcome. It was the youngest of the
Gladmans ; who, by marriage with a Bruton, had become
mistress of the old mansion. A comely brood are the
Brutons. Six of them, females, were noted as the
handsomest young women in the county. But this adopted
Bruton, in my mind, was better than they all — more comely.
She was born too late to have remembered me. She just
recollected in early life to have had their cousin Bridget
once pointed out to her, climbing a stile. But the name
91
The Essays of Elia
of kindred, and of cousinship, was enough. Those slender
ties, that prove slight as gossamer in the rending atmo-
sphere of a metropolis, bind faster, as we found it, in hearty,
homely, loving Hertfordshire. In five minutes we were as
thoroughly acquainted as if we had been born and bred up
together; were familiar, even to the calling each other by
our Christian names. So Christians should call one another.
To have seen Bridget, and her — it was like the meeting
of the two scriptural cousins ! There was a grace and
dignity, an amplitude of foim and stature, answering to her
mind, in this farmer's wife, which would have i>hined in a
palace — or so we thought it. We were made welcome by
husband and wife equally — we, and our friend that was
with us. — I had almost forgotten him — but B. F.' will not
so soon forget that meeting, if peradventure he shall read
this on the far distant shores where the Kangaroo haunts.
The fatted calf was made ready, or rather was already so,
as if in anticipation of our coming; and, after an appropri-
ate glass of native wine, never let me forget with what
honest pride this hospitable cousin made us proceed to
Wheathampstead, to introduce us (as some new-found
rarity) to her mother and sister Gladmans, who did indeed
know something more of us, at a time when she almost
knew nothing. — With what corresponding kindness we were
received by them also — how Bridget's memory, exalted by
the occasion, warmed into a thousand half-obliterated
recollections of things and persons, to my utter astonish-
ment, and her own — and to the astoundment of B. F. who
sat by, almost the only thing that was not a cousin there,
— old eflfaced images of more than half-forgotten names and
circumstances still crowding back upon her, as words
written in lemon come out upon exposure to a friendly
warmth, — when I forget all this, then may my country
cousins forget me ; and Bridget no more remember, that
in the days of weakling infancy I was her tender charge —
as I have been her care in foolish manhood since — in those
pretty pastoral walks, long ago, about Mackery End, in
Hertfordsliire.
[' Barroa Field.]
92
Modern Gallantry
MODERN GALLANTRY.
In comparing modern with ancient manners, we are pleased
to compliment ourselves upon the point of gallantry; a
certain obsequiousness, or deferential respect, which we are
supposed to pay to females, as females.
I shall believe that this principle actuates our conduct,
when I can forget, that in the nineteenth century of the era
from which we date our civility, we are but just beginning
to leave off the very frequent practice of whipping females
in public, in common with the coarsest male offenders.
I shall believe it to be influential, when I can shut my
eyes to the fact, that in England women are still occasion-
ally— hanged.
I shall believe in it, when actresses are no longer subject
to be hissed off a stage by gentlemen.
I shall believe in it, when Dorimant hands a fish-wife
across the kennel; or assists the apple-woman to pick up
her wandering fruit, which some unlucky dray has just
dissipated.
I shall believe in it, when the Dorimants in humbler
life, who would be thought in their way notable adepts in
this refinement, shall act upon it in places where they
are not known, or think themselves not observed — when
I shall see the traveller for some rich tradesman part with
his admired box-coat, to spread it over the defenceless
shoulders of the poor woman, who is passing to her
parish on the roof of the same stage-coach with him,
drenched in the rain — when I shall no longer see a woman
standing up in the pit of a London theatre, till she is sick
and faint with the exertion, with men about her, seated at
their ease, and jeering at her distress ; till one, that seems
to have more manners or conscience than the rest, signifi-
cantly declares "she should be welcome to his seat, if she
were a little younger and handsomer." Place this dapper
warehouseman, or that rider, in a circle of their own
female acquaintance, and you shall confess you have not
seen a politer-bred man in Lothbury.
Lastly, I shall begin to believe that there is some such
principle influencing our conduct, when more than one-
93
The Essays of Elia
half of the drudgery and coarse servitude of the world
shall cease to be performed by women.
Until that day comes, I shall never believe this boasted
point to be anything more than a conventional fiction; a
pageant got up between the sexes, in a certain rank, and
at a certain time of life, in which both find their account
equally.
I shall be even disposed to rank it among the salutary
fictions of life, when in polite circles I shall see the same
attentions paid to age as to youth, to homely features as to
handsome, to coarse complexions as to clear — to the
woman, as she is a woman, not as she is a beauty, a fortune,
or a title.
I shall believe it to be something more than a name,
when a well-dressed gentleman in a well-dressed company
can advert to the topic of female old age without exciting,
and intending to excite, a sneer: — when the phrases
" antiquated virginity," and such a one has " overstood her
market," pronounced in good company, shall raise immedi-
ate oflfence in man, or woman, that shall hear them spoken.
Joseph Paice, of Bread Street Hill, merchant, and one of
the Directors of the South-Sea company — the same to whom
Edwards, the Shakespeare commentator, has addressed a
fine sonnet — was the only pattern of consistent gallantry I
have met with. He took me under his shelter at an early
age, and bestowed some pains upon me. I owe to his
precepts and example whatever there is of the man of
business (and that is not much) in my composition. It
was not his fault that I did not profit more. Though bred
a Presbyterian, and brought up a merchant, he was the
finest gentleman of his time. He had not one system of
attention to females in the drawing-room, and another in
the shop, or at the stall. I do not mean that he made no
distinction. But he never lost sight of sex, or overlooked
it in the casualities of a disadvantageous situation. I have
seen him stand bare-headed — smile if you please — to a
poor servant girl, while she has been inquiring of him the
way to some street — in such a posture of unforced civility,
as neither to embarrass her in the acceptance, nor himself
in the offer, of it. He was no dangler, in the common
acceptation of the word, after women : but he reverenced
and upheld, in every form in which it came before him,
womanhood. I have seen him — nay, smile not — tenderly
94
Modern Gallantry
escorting a market-woman, whom he had encountered in a
shower, exalting his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit,
that it might receive no damage, with as much carefulness
as if she had been a Countess. To the reverend form of
Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to an
ancient beggar-woman) with more ceremony than we can
afford to show our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier
of Age ; the Sir Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to those who have
no Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The roses, that
had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in those
withered and yellow cheeks.
He was never married, but in his youth he paid his
addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley — old Win-
stanley's daughter of Clapton — who dying in the early
days of their courtship, confirmed in him the resolution
of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short
courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating
his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches — the common
gallantries — to which kind of thing she had hitherto mani-
fested no repugnance — but in this instance with no effect.
He could not obtain from her a decent acknowledgment in
return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments.
He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had
always shown herself above that littleness. When he
ventured on the following day, finding her a little better
humoured, to expostulate with her on her coldness of
yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that she
had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could
even endure some high-flown compliments ; that a young
woman placed in her situation had a right to expect all sort
of civil things said to her; that she hoped she could digest
a dose of adulation, short of insincerity, with as little injury
to her humility as most young women : but that — a little
before he had commenced his compliments — she had over-
heard him by accident, in rather rough language, rating a
young woman, who had not brought home his cravats quite
to the appointed time, and she thought to herself, "As I
am Miss Susan Winstanley, and a young lady — a reputed
beauty, and known to be a fortune, — I can have my choice
of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very fine
gentleman who is courting me — but if I had been poor
Mary Such-a-one {naming the mi/liner), — and had failed of
bringing home the cravats to the appointed hour — though
95
The Essays of Eliit
perhaps I had sat up half the night to forward them — what
sort of compliments should I have received then? — And
my woman's pride came to my assistance ; and I thought,
that if it were only to do mc honour, a female, like myself,
might have received handsomer usage : and I was deter-
mined not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of
that sex, the belonging to which was after all my strongest
claim and title to them."
I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just
way of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover;
and I have sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain
of courtesy, which through life regulated the actions and
behaviour of my friend tov/ards all of womankind indis-
criminately, owed its happy origin to this seasonable lesson
from the lips of his lamented mistress.
I wish the whole female world would entertain the same
notion of these things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then
we should see something of the spirit of consistent
gallantry; and no longer witness the anomaly of the same
man — a pattern of true politeness to a wife — of cold con-
tempt, or rudeness, to a sister — the idolater of his female
mistress — the disparager and despiser of his no less female
aunt, or unfortunate — still female — maiden cousin. Just
so much respect as a woman derogates from her own sex, in
whatever condition placed — her handmaid, or dependent —
she deserves to have diminished from herself on that score ;
and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and
beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall
lose of their attraction. What a woman should demand of
a man in courtship, or after it, is first — respect for her as
she is a woman ; — and next to that — to be respected by
him above all other women. But let her stand upon her
female character as upon a foundation; and let the atten-
tions, incident to individual preference, be so many pretty
additaments and ornaments — as many, and as fanciful, as
you please — to that main structure. Let her first lesson be
— with sweet Susan Winstanley — to reverence lur sex.
96
The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple
THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER
TEMPLE.
T was bom, and passed the first seven years of my life, in
the Temple. Its church, its halls, its gardens, its fountain,
its river, I had almost said — for in those young years, what
was this king of rivers to me but a stream that watered our
pleasant places? — these are my oldest recollections. I
repeat, to this day, no verses to myself more frequently, or
with kindlier emotion, than those of Spenser, where he
speaks of this spot.
There when they came, whereas those bricky towers,
The which on Themmes brode aged back doth ride,
Where now ii.c studious lawyers have their bowers,
Tliere whylome wont the Templar knights to bide.
Till they decayd through pride.
Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis.
What a transition for a countryman visiting London for the
first time — the passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet
Street, by unexpected avenues, into its magnificent ample
squares, its classic green recesses! What a cheerful,
liberal look hath that portion of it, which, from three sides,
overlooks the greater garden ; that goodly pile
Of building strong, albeit of Paper hightt
confronting, with massy contrast, the lighter, older, more
fantastically shrouded one, named of Harcourt, with the
cheerful Crown Office Row (place of my kindly engendure),
right opposite the stately stream, which washes the garden-
foot with her yet scarcely trade-polluted waters, and seems
but just weaned from her Twickenham Naiades ! a man
would give something to have been born in such places.
What a collegiate aspect has that fire Elizabethan hall,
where the fountain plays, which 1 have made to rise and
fall, how many times 1 to the astoundment of the young
urchins, my contemporaries, who, not being able to guess
at its recondite machinery, were almost tempted to hail the
wondrous work as magic 1 What an antique air had the
now almost effaced sun-dials, with their moral inscriptions,
G 97
The Essays of Elia
seeming coevals with that Time which they measured, and
to take their revelations of its flight immediately from
heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light !
How would the dark line steal imperceptibly on, watched
by the eye of childhood, eager to detect its movement,
never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or the first
arrests of sleep !
Ah ! yet doth beauty like a dial-hand
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived I
What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous em-
bowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dullness
of communication, compared with the simple altar-like
structure, and silent heart language of the old dial ! It
stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is
it almost everywhere vanished? If its business use be
superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its
beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke
of moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sun-
set, of temperance, and good-hours. It was the primitive
clock, the horologe of the first world. Adam could scarce
have missed it in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate
for sweet plants and flowers to spring by, for the birds to
apportion their silver warblings by, for flocks to pasture
and be led to fold by. The shepherd " carved it out
quaintly in the sun ; " and, turning philosopher by the
very occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching
than tombstones. It was a pretty device of the gardener,
recorded by Marvell, who, in the days of artificial garden-
ing, made a dial out of herbs and flowers. I must quote
his verses a little higher up, for they are full, as all his
serious poetry was, of a witty delicacy. They will not
come in awkwardly, I hope, in a talk of fountains and sun-
dials. He is speaking of sweet garden scenes :
What wondrous life is this I lead !
Ripe apples drop about my head.
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine.
The nectarine, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach.
Stumbling; on melons, as I pass,
Insnared with flowers, I fall on grass.
Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less
Withdraws into its happiness.
The mind, that ocean, where each kind
98
The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple
Does straight its own resemblance find )
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and otlier seas ;
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade
Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit tree's mos^y root.
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide :
There, like a bird, it sits and sings.
Then whets and claps its silver wings ;
And, till prepared for longer fliL^ht,
Waves in its plumes the various light.
How well the skilful gardener drew.
Of flowers and herbs, this dial new !
Where, from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run :
And, as it works the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon d, but with herbs and flowers ? '■
The artificial fountains of the metropolis are, in like
manner, fast vanishing. Most of them are dried up, or
bricked over. Yet, where one is left, as in that little green
nook behind the South Sea House, what a freshness it
gives to the dreary pile ! Four little winged marble boys
used to play their virgin fancies, spouting out ever fresh
streams from their innocent-wanton lips, in the square of
Lincoln's Inn, when I was no bigger than they were figured.
They are gone, and the spring choked up. The fashion,
they tell me, is gone by, and these things are esteemed
childish. Why not then gratify children, by letting them
stand ? Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. They
are awakening images to them at least. Why must every-
thing smack of man, and mannish ? Is the world all grown
up? Is childhood dead? Oris there not in the bosoms
of the wisest and the best some of the child's heart left, to
respond to its earliest enchantments? The figures were
grotesque. Are the stiff-wigged living figures that still
flitter and chatter about that area, less gothic in appear-
ance? or is the splutter of their hot rhetoric one half so
refreshing and innocent as the little cool playful streams
those exploded cherubs uttered ?
They have lately gothicised the entrance to the Inner
Temple hall, and the library front, to assimilate them, I
From a copy of verses entitled The Garden.
99
The Essays of Elia
suppose, to the body of the hall, which they do not at all
resemble. What is become of the winged horse that stood
over the former? a stately arms! and who has removed
those frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianised the end of
the Paper-buildings? — my first hint of allegory ! They
must account to me for these things, which I miss so
greatly.
The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the
parade ; but the traces are passed away of the footsteps
which made its pavement awful! It is become common
and profane. The old benchers had it almost sacred to
themselves, in the forepart of the day at least. They
might not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted
the parade. You left wide spaces betwixt you, when you
passed them. We walk on even terms with their succes-
sors. The roguish eye of J 11,' ever ready to be
delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie a repartee
w.th it. But what insolent familiar durst have mated
Thomas Coventry? — whose person was a quadrate, his step
massy and elephantine, his face square as the lion's, his
gait peremptory and path-keeping, indivertible from his
way as a moving column, the scarecrow of his inferiors, the
brow-beater of equals and superiors, who made a solitude
of children wherever he came, for they fled his insulTerable
presence, as they would have shunned an Elisha bear.
His growl was as thunder in their ears, whether he spake
to them in mirth or in rebuke, his invitatory notes being,
indeetl, of all, the most repulsive and horrid. Clouds of
snuff, aggravating the natural terrors of h's speech, broke
from each m ijestic nostril, darkening the air. He took it,
not by pinches, but a palmful at once, diving for it under
the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat pocket ; his
waistcoat red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured by
dye original, and by adjuncts, with buttons of obsolete
gold. And so he paced the terrace.
By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen ; the
pensive gentility of Samuel Salt. They were coevals, and
had nothing but that and their benchership in common.
In politics Salt was a whig, and Coventry a staunch tory.
Many a sarcastic growl did the latter cast out — for Coventry
had a rough spinous humour — at the political confederates
of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom of
[' Jekyll, Master in Chancery,]
I GO
The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple
the latter like cannon-balls from wool. You could not
ruffle Samuel Salt.
S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of
excellent discernment in the chamber practice of the law.
1 suspect his knowledge did not amount to much. When
a case of difficult disposition of money, testamentary or
otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily handed it over
with a few instructions to his man Lovel,' who was a quick
little fellow, and would despatch it out of hand by the light
of natural understanding, of which he had an uncommon
share. It was incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed
by the mere trick of gravity. He was a shy man ; a child
might pose him in a minute — indolent and procrastinating
to the last degree. Yet men would give him credit for vast
application in spite of himself. He was not to be trusted
with himself with impunity. He never dressed for a dinner-
party but he forgot his sword — they wore swords then —
or some other necessary part of his equipage. Lovel had
his eye upon him on all these occasions, and ordinarily
gave him his cue. If there was anything which he could
speak unseasonably, he was sure to do it. — He was to dine
at a relative's of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day of
her execution; — and L. who had a wary foresight of his
probable hallucinations, before he set out, schooled him
with great anxiety not in any possible manner to allude to
her story that day. S. promised faithfully to observe the
injunction. He had not been seated in the parlour, where
the company was expecting the dinner summons, four
minutes, when, a pause in the conversation ensuing, he got
up, looked out of window, and pulling down his ruffles —
an ordinary motion with him — observed, "it was a gloomy
day," and added, " Miss Blandy must he hanged by this
time, I suppose." Instances of this sort were perpetual.
Yet S. was thought by some of the greatest men of his time
a fit person to be consulted, not alone in matters pertaining
to the law, but in the ordinary niceties and embarrassments
of conduct — from force of manner entirely. He never
laughed. He had the same good fortune among the female
world, — was a known toast with the ladies, and one or two
are said to have died for love of him — I suppose, because
he never trifled or talked gallantry with them, or paid
them, indeed, hardly common attentions. He had a fine
[ ' John Lamb, father to Charles.]
lOI
The Essays of Elia
face and person, but wanted, methought, the spirit that
should have shown them off with advantage to the women.
His eye lacked lustre. — Not so, thought Susan P ;'
who, at the advanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold
evening time, unaccompanied, wetting the pavement of
B d Row with tears that fell in drops which might be
heard, because her friend had died that day — he, whom
she had pursued with a hopeless pTssion for the last forty
years — a passion, which years could not extinguish or
abate ; nor the long resolved, yet gently enforced, puttings
off of unrelenting bachelorhood dissuade from its cherished
purpose. Mild Susan P , thou hast now thy friend in
heaven.
Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble family of that
name. He passed his youth in contracted circumstances,
which gave him early those parsimonious habits which in
after-life never forsook him ; so that, with one windfall or
another, about the time I knew him he was master of four
or five hundred thousand pounds ; nor did he look, or walk,
worth a moidore less. He lived in a gloomy house opposite
the pump in Serjeant's Inn, Fleet Street. J., the counsel,
is doing self-imposed penance in it, for what reason I
divine not at this day. C. had an agreeable seat at North
Cray, where he seldom spent above a day or two at a time
in the summer; but preferred, during the hot months,
standing at his window in this damp, close, well-like
mansion, to watch as he said, "the maids drawing water
all day long." I suspect he had his within-door reasons
for the preference. Hie currus et armafucre. He might
think his treasures more safe. His house had the aspect
of a strong box. C. was a close hunks — a hoarder rather
than a miser — or, if a miser, none of the mad Elwes breed,
who have brought discredit upon a character, which cannot
exist without certain admirable points of steadiness and
unity of purpose. One may hate a true miser, but cannot, I
suspect, so easily despise him. By taking care of the pence,
he is often enabled to part with the pounds, upon a scale
that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an im-
measurable distance behind. C- gave away ^{^30,000 at
once in his life-time to a blind charity. His housekeeping
was severely looked after, but he kept the table of a gentle-
man. He would know who came in and who went oat of
[' Pierson.]
102
The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple
his house, but his kitchen chimney was never suffered to
freeze.
, Salt was his opposite in this, as in all — never knew what
he was worth in the world ; and having but a competency
for his rank, which his indolent habits were little calculated
to improve, might have suffered severely if he had not had
honest people about him. Lovel took care of everything.
He was at once his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, his
friend, his " flapper," his guide, stop-watch, auditor,
treasurer. He did nothing without consulting Lovel, or
failed in anything without expecting and fearing his ad-
monishing. He put himself almost too much in his hands,
had they not been the purest in the world. He resigned
his title almost to respect as a master, if L. could ever
have forgotten for a moment that he was a servant.
I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible
and losing honesty. A good fellow withal, and " would
strike." In the cause of the oppressed he never considered
inequalities, or calculated the number of his opponents.
He once wrestled a sword out of the hand of a man of
quality that had drawn upon him : and pommelled him
severely with the hilt of it. The swordsman had offered
insult to a female — an occasion upon which no odds against
him could have prevented the interference of Lovel. He
would stand next day bare-headed to the same person,
modestly to excuse his interference — for L. never forgot
rank, where something better was not concerned. L. was
the liveliest little fellow breathing, had a face as gay as
Garrick's, whom he was said greatly to resemble (I have a
portrait of him which confirms it), possessed a fine turn
for humorous poetry — next to Swift and Prior — moulded
heads in clay or plaster of Paris to admiration, by the dint
of natural genius merely ; turned cribbage boards, and
such small cabinet toys, to perfection ; took a hand at
quadrille or bowls with equal facility ; made punch better
than any man of his degree in P^ngland ; had the merriest
quips and conceits, and was altogether as brimful of
rogueries and inventions as you could desire. He was a
brother of the angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty,
honest companion as Mr. Isaac Walton would have chosen
to go a fishing with. I saw him in his old age and the
decay of his faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad stage
of human weakness — "a remnant most forlorn of what he
103
The Essays of Elia
was," — yet even then his eye would liglit np upon the
mention of his favourite Garrick. He was greatest, he
would say, in Bayes — "was upon the stage nearly through-
out the whole performance, and as busy as a bee." At
intervals, too, he would speak of his former life, and how
he came up a little boy from Lincoln to go to service, and
how his mother cried at parting with him, and how he
returned, after some few years' absence, in his smart new
livery to see her, and she blessed herself at the change,
and could hardly be brought to believe that it was " her
own bairn." And then, the excitement subsiding, he
would weep, till I have wished that sad second-childhood
might have a mother still to lay its head upon her lap.
But the common mother of us all in no long time after
received him gently into hers.
With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks upon the
terrace, most commonly Peter Pierson would join, to make
up a third. They did not walk linked arm-in-arm in those
days — "as now our stout triumvirs sweep the streets," —
but generally with both hands folded behind them for
state, or with one at least behind, the other carrying a
cane. P. was a benevolent, but not a prepossessing man.
He had that in his face which you could not term un-
happiness ; it rather implied an incapacity of being happy.
His cheeks were colourless, even to whiteness. His look
was uninviting, resembling (but without his sourness) that
of our great philanthropist. I know that he did good acts,
but I could never make out what he ivas. Contemporary
with these, but subordinate, was Daines Barrington —
another oddity — he walked burly and square — in imitation,
I think, of Coventry — howbeit he attained not to the
dignity of his prototype. Nevertheless, he did pretty well,
upon the strength of being a tolerable antiquarian, and
having a brother a bishop. When the account of his year's
treasurership came to be audited, the following singular
charge was unanimously disallowed by the bench : "Item,
disbursed Mr. Allen, the gardener, twenty shillings, for
stuff to poison the sparrows, by my orders." Next to him
was old Barton — a jolly negation, who took upon him the
ordering of the bills of fare for the parliament chamber,
where the benchers dine — answering to the combination
rooms at college — much to the easement of his less
epicurean brethren. I know nothing more of him. — Then
104
The Old Benchers of the Inner Temple
Read, and Twopenny* — Read, good-humoured and per-
sonable — Twopenny, good-humoured, but thin, and
felicitous in jesis upon his own figure. If T. was thin,
Wharry was attenuated and fleeting. Many must lemember
him (for he was rather of later date) and his singular gait,
which was performed by three steps and a jump regularly
succeeding. The steps were little efforts, like that of a
child beginning to walk; the jump comparatively vigorous,
as a foot to an inch. Where he learned this figure, or
what occasioned it, I could never discover. It was neither
graceful in itself, nor seemed to answer the purpose any
better than common walking. The extreme tenuity of his
frame I suspect set him upon it. It was a trial of poising.
Twopenny would often rally him upon his leanness, and
hail him as Brother Lusty ; but W. had no relish of a joke.
His features were spiteful. I have heard that he would
pinch his cat's ears extremely, when anything had offended
him. Jackson — the omniscient Jackson he was called — was
of this period. He had the reputation of possessing more
multifarious knowledge than any man of his time. He was
the Friar Bacon of the less literate portion of the Temple.
I remember a pleasant passage, of the cook applying to him,
with much formality of apology, for instructions how to
write down edge bone of beef in his bill of commons. He
was supposed to know, if any man in the world did. He
decided the orthography to be — as I have given it — fortify-
ing his authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed
the manciple (for the time) learned and happy. Some do
spell it yet perversely, aitch bone, from a fanciful resemblance
between its shape, and that of the aspirate so denominated.
I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron hand — but he
was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some
accident, and supplied it with a grappling hook, which he
wielded with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the sub-
stitute, before I was old enough to reason whether it were
artificial or not. I remember the astonishment it raised in
me. He was a blustering, loud-talking person ; and I re-
conciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of
power — somewhat like the horns in the forehead of Michael
Angelo's Moses. Baron Maseres, who walks (or did till
very lately) in the costume of the reign of George the
[' Twopenny was not a Bencher, but a Stockbroker who had chambers
in the Temple.]
105
The Essays of Elia
Second, closes my imperfect recollections of the old benchers
of the Inner Temple.
Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled ? Or, if ^he like of
you exist, why exist they no more for me? Ye inexplicable,
half-understood appearances, why comes in reason to tear
away the preternatural mist, bright or gloomy, that en-
shrouded you? Why make ye so sorry a figure in my rela-
tion, who made up to me — to my childish eyes — the
mythology of the Temple? In those days I saw Gods, as
"old men covered with a mantle," walking upon the earth.
Let the dreams of classic idolatry perish, — extinct be the
fairies and fairy trumpery of legendary fabling, — in the heart
of childhood, there will, for ever, spring up a well of innocent
or wholesome superstition — the seeds of exaggeration will
be busy there, and vital — from every-day forms educing the
unknown and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there
will be light, when the grown world flounders about in the
darkness of sense and materiality. While childhood, and
while dreams, reducing childliood, shall be left, imagination
shall not have spread her holy wings totally to fly the earth.
P.S. I have done injustice to the soft shade of Samuel
Salt. See what it is to trust to imperfect memory, and the
erring notices of childhood ! Yet I protest I always thought
that he had been a bachelor ! This gentleman, R. N. '
informs me, married young, and losing his lady in child-bed,
within the first year of their union, fell into a deep melan-
choly, from the effects of which, probably, he never
thoroughly recovered. In what a new light does this place
his rejection (O call it by a gentler name !) of mild Susan
P , unravelling into beauty certain peculiarities of this
very shy and retiring character ! — Henceforth let no one re-
ceive the narratives of Elia for true records ! They are, in
truth, but shadows of fact — verisimilitudes, not verities — or
sitting but upon the remote edges and outskirts of history.
He is no such honest chronicler as R. N., and would have
done better perhaps to have consulted that gentleman,
before he sent these incondite reminiscences to press. But
the worthy sub-treasurer — who respects his old and his new
masters — would but have been puzzled at the indecorous
liberties of Elia. The good man wots not, peradventure, of
the license which Magazines have arrived at in this plain-
[' Randal Norris.]
1 06
Grace before Meat
speaking age, or hardly dreams of their existence beyond
the Gentlemati's — his furthest monthly excursions in this
nature having been long confined to the holy ground of
honest Urban's obituary. May it be long before his own
name shall help to swell those columns of unenvied flattery ! —
Meantime, O ye New Benchers of the Inner Temple, cherish
him kindly, for he is himself the kindliest of human
creatures. Should infirmities over-take him — he is yet in
green and vigorous senility — make allowances for them, re-
membering that "ye yourselves are old." So may the
Winged Horse, your ancient badge and cognisance, still
flourish ! so may future Hookers and Seldens illustrate your
church and chambers ! So may the sparrows, in default of
more melodious quiristers, unpoisoned hop about your
walks ! so may the fresh-coloured and cleanly nursery maid,
who, by leave, airs her playful charge in your stately gardens,
drop her prettiest blushing curtsy as ye pass, reductive of
juvenescent emotion ! so may the younkers of this genera-
tion eye you, pacing your stately terrace, with the same
superstitious veneration, with which the child Elia gazed on
the Old Worthies that solemnised the parade before ye !
GRACE BEFORE MEAT.
The custom of saying grace at meals had, probably, its
origin in the early times of the world, and the hunter-state
of man, when dinners were precarious things, and a full
meal was something more than a common blessing ; when
a belly-full was a windfall, and looked like a special
providence. In the shouts and triumphal songs with which,
after a season of sharp abstinence, a lucky booty of deer's
or goat's flesh would naturally be ushered home, existed,
perhaps, the germ of the modern grace. It is not other-
wise easy to be understood, why the blessing of food — the
act of eating — should have had a particular expression of
thanksgiving annexed to it, distinct from that implied and
silent gratitude with which we are expected to enter upon
the enjoyment of the many other various gifts and good
things of existence.
I own that I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other
occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I
107
The Essays of Elia
want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a
moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting, or a solved
problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual
repasts — a grace before Milton — a grace before Shakespeare
— a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading
the Fairy Queen ? — but, the received ritual having
prescribed these forms to the solitary ceremony of man-
ducation, I shall confine my observations to the experience
which I have had of the grace, properly so called; com-
mending my new scheme for extension to a niche in the
grand philosophical, poetical, and perchance in part
heretical, liturgy, now compiling by my friend Homo
Humanus, for the use of a certain snug congregation of
Utopian Rabelsesian Christians, no matter where as-
sembled.
The form then of the benediction before eating has its
beauty at a poor man's table, or at the simple and unprovo-
cative repasts of children. It is here that the grace becomes
exceedingly graceful. The indigent man, who hardly
knows whether he shall have a meal the next day or not,
sits down to his fare with a present sense of the blessing
which can be but feebly acted by the rich, into whose
minds the conception of wanting a dinner could never, but
by some extreme theory, have entered. The proper end
of food — the animal sustenance — is barely contemplated
by them. The poor man's bread is his daily bread,
literally his bread for the day. Their courses are
perennial.
Again, the plainest diet seems the fittest to be preceded
by the grace. That which is least stimulative to appetite,
leaves the mind most free for foreign considerations. A
man may feel thankful, heartily thankful, over a dish of
plain mutton with turnips, and have leisure to reflect upon
the ordinance and institution of eating ; when he shall
confess a perturbation of mind, inconsistent with the
purposes of the grace, at the presence of venison or turtle.
When I have sate (a rarus Jiospes) at rich men's tables, with
the savoury soup and messes steaming up the nostrils, and
moistening the lips of the guests with desire and a
distracted choice, I have felt the introduction of that
ceremony to be unseasonable. With the ravenous orgnsm
upon you, it seems impertinent to interpose a religious
sentiment. It is a confusion of purpose to mutter out
io8
Grace before Meat
praises from a mouth that waters. The heats of epicurism
put out the gentle flame of devotion. The incense which
rises round is pagan, and the belly-god intercepts it for his
own. The very excess ol the provision beyond the needs,
takes away all sense of proportion between the end and
means. The giver is veiled by his gifts. You are startled at
the injustice of returning thanks — for what? — for having too
much, while so many starve. It is to praise the Gods amiss.
I have observed this awkwardness felt, scarce consciously
perhaps, by the good man who says the grace. I have seen
it in clergymen and others — a sort of shame — a sense of
the co-presence of circumstances which unhallow the
blessing. After a devotional tone put on for a few seconds,
how rapidly the speaker will fall into his common voice,
helping himself or his nteighl)our, as if to get rid of some
uneasy sensation of hypocrisy. Not that the good man
was a hypocrite, or was not most conscientious in the
discharge of the duty ; but he felt in his inmost mind the
incompatibility of the scene and the viands before him
with the exercise of a calm and rational gratitude.
I hear somebody exclaim, — Would you have Christians
sit down at table, like hogs to their troughs, without re-
membering the Giver? — no — I would have them sit down
as Christians, remembering the Giver, and less like hogs.
Or if their appetites mu'>t run riot, and they must pamper
themseh es with delicacies for which east and west are ran-
sacked, I would have them postpone their benediction to a
fitter season, when appetite is laid; when the still small
voice can be heard, and the reason of the grace returns —
with tr-mperate diet and restricted dishes. Gluttony and
surfeiting are no proper occasions for thanksgiving. When
Jeshurun waxed fat, we read that he kicked. Virgil knew the
harpy-nature better, when he put into the mouth of Celaeno
any thing but a blessing. We may be gratefully sensible of
the deliciousness of some kinds of food bevord others,
though that is a meaner and inferior gratitude: but the
proper object of the grace is sustenance, not relishes ;
daily bread, not delicacies ; the means of life, and not the
means of pampering the carcass. With what frame or
composure, I wonder, can a city chaplain pronounce his
benediction at some great Hall feast, when he knows that
his last concluding pious word — and that, in all probability,
the sacred name which he preaches — is but the signal for so
109
The Essays of Elia
many impatient harpies to commence their foul orgies,
with as Uttle sense of true thankfulness (which is temperance)
as those VirgiUan fowl ! It is well if the good man himself
does not feel his devotions a little clouded, those foggy
sensuous steams mingling with and polluting the pure
altar sacrifice.
The severest satire upon full tables and surfeits is the
banquet which Satan, in the " Paradise Regained," provides
for a temptation in the wilderness :
A table richly spread in regal mode,
With dishes piled, and meats of noblest sort
And savour ; beasts of chase, or fowl of game,
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boiled,
Gris-amber-steamed ; all fish from sea or shore.
Freshet or purling brook, for which was drained
Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast.
The Tempter, I warrant you, thought these cates would
go down without the recommendatory preface of a bene-
diction. They are like to be short graces where the devil
plays the host. — I am afraid the poet wants his usual
decorum in this place. Was he thinking of the old Roman
luxury, or of a gaudy day at Cambridge? This was a
temptation fitter for a Heliogabalus. The whole banquet
is too civic and culinary, and the accompaniments alto-
gether a profanation of that deep, abstracted, holy scene.
The mighty artillery of sauces, which the cook-fiend con-
jures up, is out of proportion to the simple wants and plain
hunger of the guest. He that disturbed him in his dreams,
from his dreams might have been taught better. To the tem-
perate fantasies of the famished Son of God, what sort of
feasts presented themselves? — He dreamed indeed,
As appetite is wont to dream.
Of meats and drinks, nature's refreshment sweet.
But what meats? —
Ilim thought, he by the brook of Chcrilh stood,
And saw the ravens with their horny beaks
Food to Elijah bringing, even and morn
Though ravenous, taught to abstain from what they brought ;
lie saw the prophet also how he fled
Into the desert, and how there he slept
Under a juniper ; then how awaked
Me found his supper on the coals prepared,
no
Grace before Meat
And by the angel was bid rise and eat,
And ate the second time after repose,
The strength whereot sufficed him forty days:
Sometimes, that with Elijah he partook,
Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse.
Nothing in Milton is finelier fancied than these temperate
dreams of the divine Hungerer. To which of these two
visionary banquets, think you, would the introduction of
what is called the grace have been most fitting and
pertinent?
Theoretically I am no enemy to graces; but practically
I own that (before meat especially) they seem to involve
something awkward and unseasonable. Our appetites, of
one or another kind, are excellent spurs to our reason,
which might otherwise but feebly set about the great ends
of preserving and continuing the species. They are fit
blessings to be contemplated at a distance with a becoming
gratitude: but the moment of appetite (the iudicious reader
will apprehend me) is, perhaps, the least fit season for that
exercise. The Quakers who go about their business, of
every description, with more calmness than we, have more
title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I have
always admired their silent grace, and the more because I
have observed their applications to the meat and drink
following to be less passionate and sensual than ours. They
are neither gluttons nor wine-bibbers as a people. They eat,,
as a horse bolts his chopt hay, with indifference, calmness,
and cleanly circumstances. They neither grease nor slop
themselves. When I see a citizen in his bib and tucker, I
cannot imagine it a surplice.
I am no Quaker at my food. I confess I am not indif-
ferent to the kinds of it. Those unctuous morsels of deer's
flesh were not made to be received with dispassionate
services. I hate a man who swallows it, affecting not to
know what he is eating. I su.spect his taste in higher
matters. I shrink instinctively from one who professes to
like minced veal. There is a physiognomical character in
the tastes for food. C ' holds that a man cannot have
a pure mind who refuses apple-dumplings. I am not certain
but he is right. With the decay of my first innocence,
I confess a less and less relish daily for these innocuous
cates. The whole vegetable tribe have lost their gust with
[' Coleridge.]
Ill
The Essays of Elia
nie. Only I stick to asparagus, which still seems to inspire
gentle thoughts. I am impatient and querulous under
culinary disappointments, as to come home at the dinner
hour, for instance, expecting some savoury mess, and to find
one quite tasteless and sapidless. Butter ill melted — that
commonest of kitchen failures — puts me beside my tenour.
— The author of the "Rambler" used to make inarticulate
animal noises over a favourite food. Was this the music
quite proper to be preceded by the grace ? or would the pious
man have done better to postpone his devotions to a season
when the blessing might be contemplated with less perturba-
tion? I quarrel with no man's tastes, nor would set my
thin face against those excellent things, in their way, jollity
and feasting. But as these exercises, however laudable,
have little in them of grace or gracefulness, a man should
be sure, before he ventures so to grace them, that while he
is pretending his devotions otherwise, he is not secretly
kissing his hand to some great fish — his Dagon — with a
special consecration of no ark but the fat tureen before
him. Graces are the sweet preluding strains to the banquets
of angels and children : to the roots and severer ref)asts of
the Chartreuse; to the slender, but not slenderly acknow-
ledged, refection of the poor and humble man : but at the
heaped-up boards of the pampered and the luxurious they
become of dissonant mood, less timed and tunt-d to the
occasion, methinks, than the noise of those better befitting
organs would be, which children hear tales of, at Hog's
Norton. We sit too long at our meals, or are too curious
in the study of them, or too disordered in our appliration
to them, or engross too great a portion of these good things
(which should be common) to our share, to be able with
anv grace to say grace. To be thankful for what we grasp
exceeding our proportion is to add hypocrisy to injustice.
A lurking sense of this truth is what makes the performance
of this duty so cold and spiritless a service at most tables.
In houses where the grace is as indispensable as the nnf)kin,
who has not seen that never settled question arise, as to who
shall sav it ; while the good man of the house and the visitor
clf-rgyman, or some other guest belike of next authority from
years or gravity, shall be bandying about the office between
them as a matter of compliment, each of them not unwilling
to shift the awkward burthen of an equivocal duty from his
own shoulders?
112
Grace before Meat
I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines
of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune to introduce
to each other for the first time that evening. Before the
first cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentle-
men put it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he
chose to say any thing. It seems it is the custom with
some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also.
His reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him,
but upon an explanation, with little less importance he
made answer, that it was not a custom known in his
church : in which courteous evasion the other acquiescing
for good manners' sake, or in compliance with a weak
brother, the supplementary or tea-grace was waived alto-
gether. With what spirit might not Lucian have painted
two priests, of his religion, playing into each other's hands
the compliment of performing or omitting a sacrifice, — the
hungry God meantime, doubtful of his incense, with expec-
tant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and (as between
two stools) going away in the end without his supper.
A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence ;
a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of imper-
tinence. I do not quite approve of the epigrammatic
conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant
school-fellow) C. V. L.,' when importuned for a grace, used
to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is there no
clergyman here?" significantly adding, "thank G — ." Nor
do I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we
were used to preface our bald bread and cheese suppers with a
preamble, connecting with that humble blessing a recognition
of benefits the most awful and overwhelming to the imagina-
tion which religion has to offer. Non tunc illis erat loais.
I remember we were put to it to reconcile the phrase "good
creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the fare set
before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low
and animal sense, — till some one recalled a legend, which
told how in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospi-
tallers were wont to have smoking joints of roast meat upon
their nightly boards, till some pious benefactor, commiserat-
ing the decencies, rather than the palates, of the children,
commuted our flesh for garments, and gave us — horresco
referens — trowsers instead of mutton.
[' Charles Valentine le Grice.]
H II.-,
The Essays of Elia
MY FIRST PLAY.
At the north end of Cross Court there yet stands a portal,
of some architectural pretensions, though reduced to
humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a print-
ing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader,
you may not know was the identical pit entrance to Old
Drury — Garrick's Drury — all of it that is left. I never
pass it without shaking some forty years from off my
shoulders, recurring to the evening when I passed through
it to see my first play. The afternoon had been wet, and
the condition of our going (the elder folks and myself) was,
that the rain should cease. With what a beating heart did
I watch from the window the puddles, from the stillness of
which I was taught to prognosticate the desired cessation !
I seem to remember the last spurt, and the glee with which
I ran to announce it.
We went with orders, which my godfather F.* had sent
us. He kept the oil shop (now Davies's) at the corner of
Featherstone Building, in Hoi born. F. was a tall grave
person, lofty in speech, and had pretensions above his
rank. He associated in those days with John Palmer, the
comedian, whose gait and bearing he seemed to copy;
if John (which is quite as likely) did not rather borrow
somewhat of his manner from my godfather. He was also
known to, and visited by, Sheridan. It was to his house
in Holborn that young Brinsley brought his first wife on
her elopement with him from a boarding-school at Bath —
the beautiful Maria Linley. My parents were present (over
a quadrille table) when he arrived in the evening with his
harmonious charge. — From either of these connexions it
may be inferred that my godfather could command an
order for the then Drury Lane theatre at pleasure — and,
indeed, a pretty liberal issue of those cheap billets, in
Brinsley's easy autogr.iph, I have heard him say was the
sole remuneration which he had received for many years'
nightly illumination of the orchestra and various avenues of
that theatre — and he was content it should be so. The
honour of Sheridan's familiarity — or supposed familiarity —
was belter to my godfather than money.
[' Field.]
114
My First Play
F. was the most gentlemanly of oilmen : grandiloquent,
yet courteous. His delivery of the commonest matters of
fact was Ciceronian. He had two Latin words almost
constantly in his mouth (how odd sounds Latin from an
oilman's lips !), which my better knowledge since has
enabled me to correct. In strict pronunciation they should
have been sounded vice versa — but in those young years
they impressed me with more awe than they would now
do, read aright from Seneca or Varro — in his own peculiar
pronunciation monosyllabically elaborated, or Anglicised,
into something like verse verse. By an imposing manner,
and the help of those distorted syllables, he climbed (but
that was little) to the highest parochial honours which St
Andrew's has to bestow.
He is dead — and thus much I thought due to his
memory, both for my first orders (little wondrous talis-
mans ! — slight keys, and insignificant to outward sight,
but opening to me more than Arabian paradises !) and
moreover, that by his testamentary beneficence I came
into possession of the only landed property which I could
ever call my own — situate near the road-way village of
pleasant Puckeridge, in Hertfordshire. When I journeyed
down to take possession, and planted foot on my own
ground, the stately habits of the donor descended upon
me, and I strode (shall I confess the vanity?) with larger
paces over my allotment of three-quarters of an acre, with
its commodious mansion in the midst, with the feeling of
an English freeholder that all betwixt sky and centre was
my own. The estate has passed into more prudent hands,
and nothing but an agrarian can restore it.
In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfort-
able manager who abolished them ! — with one of these we
went. I remember the waiting at the door — not that
which is left — but between that and an inner door in
shelter — O when shall I be such an expectant again ! —
with the cry of nonpareils, an indispensable play-house
accompaniment in those days. As near as I can recol-
lect, the fashionable pronunciation of the theatrical
.^ruiteresses then was, " Chase some oranges, chase some
numparels, chase a bill of the play ; " — chase pro chuse.
But when we got in, and I beheld the green curtain that
veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be
disclosed the breathless anticipations I endured ! I had
IIS
The Essays of Elia
seen something like it in the plate prefixed to Troilus and
Cressida, in Rowe's Shakespeare — the tent scene with
Diomede — and a sijiht of that plate can always bring back
in a measure the feeling of that evening. — The boxes at
that time, full of well-dressed women of quality, projected
over the pit; and the pilasters reaching down were adorned
with a glistering substance (I know not what) under glass
(as it seemed), resembling — a homely fancy — but I judged
it to be sugar-candy — yet, to my raised imagination, divested
of its homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy! —
The orchestra lights at length arose, those "fair Auroras !"
Once the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again
— and, incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes
in a sort of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the
second time. The curtain drew up — I was not past six
years old — and the play was Artaxerxes !
I had dabbled a little in the Universal History — the
ancient part of it — and here was the court of Persia. It
was being admitted to a sight of the past. I took no
proper interest in the action going on, for I understood not
its import — but I heard the word Darius, and I was in the
midst of Daniel. All feeling was absorbed in vision.
Gorgeous vest?, gardens, palaces, princesses, passed before
me. I knew not players. I was in Persepolis for the time ;
and the burning idol of their devotion almost converted me
into a worshipper. I was awe-struck, and believed those
significations to be something more than elemental fires.
It was all enchantment and a dream. No such pleasure
has since visited me but in dreams. — Harlequin's Invasion
followed ; where, I remember, the transformation of the
magistrates into reverend beldams seemed to me a piece of
grave historic justice, and the tailor carrying his own head
to be as sober a verity ns the legend of St. Denys.
The next play to which I was taken was the Lady of the
Manor, of which, with the exception of some scenery, very
faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a
pantomime, called Lun's Ghost — a satiric touch, I appre-
hend, upon Rich, not long since dead — but to my
apprehension (too sincere for satire), Lun was as remote
a piece of antiquity as Lud — the father of a line of
Harlequins — transmitting his dagger of lath (the wooden
sceptre) throuch countless ages. I saw the primeval
Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly vest of
ii6
My First Play
white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead rainbow.
So Harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.
My third play followed in quick succession. It was the
Way of the World. I think I must have sat at it as grave
as a judge ; for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of
good Lady Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic
passion. Robinson Crusoe followed ; in wiiich Crusoe,
man Friday, and the parrot, were as good and authentic
as in the story. — The clownery and pantaloonery of these
pantomimes have clean passed out of my head. I believe,
I no more laughed at them, than at the same age I should
have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque Gothic heads
(seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that
gape, and grin, in stone around the inside of the old
Round Church (my church) of the Templars.
I saw these plays in the season 178 1-2, when I was
from six to seven years old. After the intervention of
six or seven other years (for at school all play-going was
inhibited) I again entered the doors of a theatre. That
old Artaxerxes evening had never done ringing in my
fancy. I expected the same feelings to come again with
the same occasion. But we differ from ourselves less at
sixty and sixteen, than the latter does from six. In that
interval what had I not lost ! At the first period I knew
nothing, understood nothinij, discriminated nothing. I
felt all, loved all, wondered all —
Was nourished, I could not tell how —
I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a
rationalist. The same things were there materially ; but
the emblem, the reference, was gone ! — The green curtain
was no longer a veil, drawn between two worlds, the
unfolding of which was to bring back past ages, to present
"a royal ghost," — but a certain quantity of green baize,
which was to separate the audience for a given time from
certain of their fellow-men who were to come forward and
pretend those pans. The lights — the orchestra lights —
came up a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the
second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell
— which had been, like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom
of a voice, no hand seen or guessed at which ministered to
its warning. The actors were men and women painted.
I thought the fault was in them ; but it was in myself,
117
The Essays of Elia
and the alteration which those many centuries — of six
short twelvemonths — had wrought in me. — Perhaps it
was fortunate for me that the play of the evening was
but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop
some unreasonable expectations, which might have inter-
fered with the genuine emotions with which I was soon
after enabled to enter upon the first appearance to me of
Mrs. Siddons in Isabella. Comparison and retrospection
soon yielded to the present attraction of the scene ; and
the theatre became to me, upon a new stock, the most
delightful of recreations.
DREAM-CHILDREN; A REVERIE.
Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when
they were children ; to stretch their imagination to the
conception of a traditionary great-uncle orgrandame, whom
they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones
crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-
grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk*
(a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa
lived) which had been the scene — so at least it was gener-
ally believed in that part of the country — of the tragic
incidents which they had lately become familiar with from
the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is
that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle
was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-
piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin
Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set
up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no
story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear
mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then
I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-
grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by
every body, though she was not indeed the mistress of
this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in
some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it
too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living
[' Blakesware, in Hertfordshire, is meant, where Lamb's grand-
oioiher, Mary Field, was housekeeper.]
Ii8
Dream-Children ; A Reverie
in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had
purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still
she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and
kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she
lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly
pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried
away to the owner's other house, where they were set up,
and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away
the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick
them up in Lady C's tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here
Jchn smiled, as much as to say, " that would be foolish
indeed." And then I told how, when she came to die, her
fuieral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and
some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles
round, to show their respect for her memory, because she
had been such a good and religious woman ; so good
indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a
great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice
spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright,
graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was ;
and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer —
here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary move-
ment, till upon my looking grave, it desisted — the best
dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease,
called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain ; but
it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop,
but they were still upright, because she was so good and
religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by her-
self in a lone chamber of the great lone house ; and how
she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be
seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase
near where she slept, but she said " those innocents would
do her no harm ; " and how frightened I used to be, though
in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I
was never half so good or religious as she — and yet I
never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eye-
brows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how
good she was to all her grand-children, having us to the
great house in the holydays, where I in particular used
to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old
busts of the Twelve Csesars, that had been Emperors of
Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again,
or I to be turned into marble with them ; how I never
119
The Essays of Elia
could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion,
with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings,
fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gild-
ing almost rubbed out — sometimes in the spacious old-
fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless
when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross
me — and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the
walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because
they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, — and
because 1 had more pleasure in strolling about among the
old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the tirs, and picking
up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were good for
nothing but to look at — or in lying about upon the fresh
grass, with all the fine garden smells around me — or bash-
ing in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripen-
ing too along with the oranges and the limes in that
grateful warmth — or in watching the dace that darted to
and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden,
with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midwa?
down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their
impertinent friskings, — I had more pleasure in these busy-
idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches,
nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of
children. Here John slily deposited back upon the plate
a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had
meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to
relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then in
somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though
their great-grandmother Field loved all her grand-children,
yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their
uncle, John L , because he was so handsome and
spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us ; and, instead
of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he
would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get,
when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it
carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the
hunters when there were any out — and yet he loved the
old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit
to be always pent up within their boundaries — and how
their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was
handsome, to the admiration of every body, but of their
great-grandmother Field most especially ; and how he
used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed
1 20
Dream-Children ; A Reverie
boy — for he was a good bit older than me — many a mile
when I could nor walk for pain ; — and how in after life he
became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make
allowances enough for him when he was impatient, and in
pain, nor remember sufificiently how considerate he had
been to me when I was lame-footed ; and how when he
died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as
if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is
betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death as I
thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted
and haunted me ; and though I did not cry or take it to
heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I
had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till
then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness,
and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive
again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled some-
times), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy
without him, as he their poor uncle must have been when
the doctor took off his limb. Here the children fell a
crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had
on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed
me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some
stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how
for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in
despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice
W n ; and, as much as children could understand, I
explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial
meant in maidens — when suddenly, turning to Alice, the
soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a
reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which
of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair
was ; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually
grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till
nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the
uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely im-
pressed upon me the effects of speech; "We are not of
Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The
children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing ;
less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might
have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe
millions of ages before we have existence, and a name" —
and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated
in my bachelor aniichair, where I had fallen asleep, with
121
The Essays of Elia
the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side — but John L,
(or James Elia) was gone for ever.
DISTANT CORRESPONDENTS.
/;; a Letttr to B. F} Esq. at Sydney, New South Wales
My dear F. — When I think how welcome the sight of a
letter from the world where you were born must be to you
in that strange one to which you have been transplanted, I
feel some compunctious visitings at my long silence. But,
indeed, it is no easy effort to set about a correspondence at
our distance. The weary world of waters between us
oppresses the imagination. It is difficult to conceive how
a scrawl of mine should ever stretch across it. It is a sort
of presumption to expect that one's thoughts should live so
far. It is like writing for posterity ; and reminds me of one
of Mrs Rowe's superscriptions, " Alcander to Strephon, in
the shades." Cowley's Post-Angel is no more than would
be expedient in such an intercourse. One drops a packet
at Lombard Street, and in twenty-four hours a friend in Cum-
berland gets it as fresh as if it came in ice. It is only like
whispering through a long trumpet. But suppose a tube let
down from the moon, with yourself at one end, and the man
at the other; it would be some balk to the spirit of conver-
sation, if you knew that the dialogue exchanged with that
interesting theoso[)hist would take two or three revolutions
of a higher luminary in its passage. Yet for aught I know,
you may be some parasangs nigher that primitive idea —
Plato's man — than we in England here have the honour to
reckon ourselves.
Epistolary matter usually compriseth three topics ; news,
sentiment, and puns. In the latter, I include all non-serious
subjects ; or subjects serious in themselves, but treated after
my fashion, non-seriously. — And first, for news. In them
the most desirable circumstance, I suppose, is that they
shall be true. But what security can I have that what I now
send you for truth shall not before you get it unaccountably
turn into a lie? For instance, our mutual friend P. is at
this present writing — 7ny N'oiv — in good health, and enjoys
[' Barron Field.]
122
Distant Correspondents
a fair share of worldly reputation. You are glad to hear it.
This is natural and friendly. But at this present reading —
your N'ow — he may possibly be in the Bench, or going to be
hanged, which in reason ought to abate someihing of your
transport (i.e. at hearing he was well, &c.), or at least con-
siderably to modify it. I am going to the play this evening,
to have a laugh with Munden. — You have no theatre, I
think you told me, in your land of d d realities. You
naturally lick your lips, and envy me my felicity. Think
but a moment, and you will correct the hateful emotion.
Why, it is Sunday morning with you, and 1823. This con-
fusion of tenses, this grand solecism of iit'o presents, is in a
degree common to all postage. But if I sent you word to
Bath or the Devises, that I was expecting the aforesaid treat
this evening, though at the moment you received the
intelligence my full feast of fun would be over, yet there
would be for a day or two after, as you would well know, a
smack, a relish left upon my mental palate, which would
give rational encouragement for you to foster a portion at
least of the disagreeable passion, which it was in part my
intention to produce. But ten months hence your envy or
your sympathy would be as useless as a passion spent upon
the dead. Not only does truth, in these long intervals, un-
essence herself, but (what is harder) one cannot venture a
crude fiction for the fear that it may ripen into a truth upon
the voyage. What a wild improbable banter I put upon
you some three years since of Will Weatherall having
married a servant-maid ! I remember gravely consulting
you how we were to receive her — for Will's wife was in no
case to be rejected ; and your no less serious replication in
the matter; how tenderly you advised an abstemious intro-
duction of literary topics before the lady, with a caution not
to be too forward in bringing on the carpet matters more
within the sphere of her intelligence ; your deliberate judg-
ment, or rather wise suspension of sentence, how far jacks,
and spits, and mops, could with propriety be introduced as
subjects ; whether the conscious avoiding of all such matters
in discourse would not have a worse look than the taking of
them casually in our way ; in what manner we should carry
ourselves to our maid Becky, Mrs. William Weatherall being
by ; whether we show more delicacy, and a truer sense of
respect for Will's wife, by treating Becky with our customary
chiding before her, or by an unusual deferential civility paid
123
The Essays of Elia
to Becky as to a person of great worth, but thrown by
the caprice of fate into a humble station. There were
difficulties, I remember, on both sides, which you did me
the favour to state with the precision of a lawyer, united to
the tenderness of a friend. I laughed in my sleeve at your
solemn pleadings, when lo ! while I was valuing myself upon
this flam put upon you in New South Wales, the devil in
England, jealous possibly of any lie-children not his own,
or working after my copy, has actually instigated our friend
(not three days since) to the commission of a matrimony,
which I had only conjured up for your diversion. William
Weatherall has married Mrs. Cotterel's maid. But to take
it in its truest sense, you will see, my dear F., that news
from me must become history to you ; which I neither pro-
fess to write, nor indeed care much for reading. No person,
under a diviner, can with any prospect of veracity conduct
a correspondence at such an arm's length. Two prophets,
indeed, might thus interchange intelligence with effect; the
epoch of the writer (Habakkuk) falling in with the true
present time of the receiver (Daniel) ; but then we are no
prophets.
Then as to sentiment. It fares little better with that.
This kind of dish, above all, requires to be served up hot ;
or sent off in water-plates, that your friend may have it
almost as warm as yourself. If it have time to cool, it is
the most tasteless of all cold meats. I have often smiled
at a conceit of the late Lord C* It seems that travelling
somewhere about Geneva, he came to some pretty green
spot, or nook, where a willow, or something, hung so
fantastically and invitingly over a stream — was it ? — or a
rock ? — no matter — but the stillness and the repose, after a
weary journey 'tis likely, in a languid moment of his lord-
ship's hot restless life, so took his fancy, that he could
imagine no place so proper, in the event of his death, to
lay his bones in. This was all very natural and excusable
as a sentiment, and shows his character in a very pleasing
light. But when from a passing sentiment it came to be an
act ; and when by a positive testamentary disposal, his
remains were actually carried all that way from England ;
who was there, some desperate sentimentalists excepted,
that did not ask the question, Why could not his lordship
have found a spot as solitary, a nook as romantic, a tree as
[' Lord Canielford.]
124
Distant Correspondents
green and pendent, with a stream as emblematic to his
purpose, in Surrey, in Dorset, or in Devon? Conceive the
sentiment boarded up, freighted, entered at the Custom
House (startling the tide-waiters with the novelty), hoisted
into a ship. Conceive it pawed about and handled between
the rude jests of tarpaulin ruffians — a thing of its delicate
texture — the salt bilge wetting it till it became as vapid
as a damaged lustring. Suppose it in material danger
(mariners have some superstition about sentiments) of
being tossed over in a fresh gale to some propitiatory shark
(spirit of Saint Gothard, save us from a quietus so foreign
to the deviser's purpose !) but it has happily evaded a fishy
consummation. Trace it then to its lucky landing — at
Lyons shall we say? — I have not the map before me —
jostled upon four men's shoulders — baiting at this town —
stopping to refresh at t'other village — waiting a passport
here, a license there ; the sanction of the magistracy in
this district, the concurrence of the ecclesiastics in that
canton ; till at length it arrives at its destination, tired out
and jaded, from a brisk sentiment, into a feature of silly
pride or tawdry senseless affectation. How few sentiments,
my dear F., I am afraid we can set down, in the sailor's
phrase, as quite sea-worthy.
Lastly, as to the agreeable levities, which, though con
temptible in bulk, are the twinkling corpuscula which
should irradiate a right friendly epistle — your puns and
small jests are, I apprehend, extremely circumscribed in
their sphere of action. They are so far from a capacity of
being packed up and sent beyond sea, they will scarce
endure to be transported by hand from this room to the
next. Their vigour is as the instant of their birth. The
nutriment for their brief existence is the intellectual atmo-
sphere of the by-standers : or this last, is the fine slime of
Nilus — the vtelior lutus, — whose maternal recipiency is as
necessary as the sol pater to their equivocal generation. A
pun hath a hearty kind of present ear-kissing smack with
it ; you can no more transmit it in its pristine flavour, than
you can send a kiss. — Have you not tried in some instances
to palm off a yesterday's pun upon a gentleman, and has it
answered ? Not but it was new to his hearing, but it did
not seem to come new from you. It did not hitch in. It
was like picking up at a village ale-house a two-days-old
newspaper. You have not seen it before, but you resent
125
The Essays of Elia
the stale thing as an aflfront. This sort of merchandise
above all requires a quick return. A pun, and its recog-
nitory laugh, must be co-instantaneous. The one is the
brisk lightning, the other the fierce thunder. A moment's
interval, and the link is snapped. A pun is reflected from
a friend's face as from a mirror. Who would consult his
sweet visnomy, if the polished surface were two or three
minutes (not to speak of twelve-months, my dear F.) in
giving back its copy?
I cannot image to myself whereabout you are. When I
try to fix it, Peter Wilkins's island comes across me.
Sometimes you seem to be in the Hades of Thieves. I see
Diogenes prying among you with his perpetual fruitless
lantern. What must you be willing by this time to give for
the sight of an honest man ! You must almost have for-
gotten how we look. And tell me, what your Sydneyites
do? are they th**v*ng all day long? Merciful heaven!
what property can stand against such a depredation ! The
kangaroos — your Aborigines — do they keep their primitive
simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short fore-
puds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pick-
pocket ! Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely
provided a priori ; but if the hue and cry were once up,
they would show as fair a pair of hind-shifters as the
expertest loco-motor in the colony. — We hear the most
improbable tales at this distance. Pray, is it true that the
young Spartans among you are born with six fingers,
which spoils their scanning ? — It must look very odd ; but
use reconciles. For their scansion, it is less to be regretted,
for if they take it into their heads to be poets, it is odds
but they turn out, the greater part of them, vile plagiarists. —
Is there much difference to see to between the son of a
th**f, and the grandson? or where does the taint stop?
Do you bleach in three or in four generations? — I have
many questions to put, but ten Delphic voyages can be
made in a shorter time than it will take to satisfy my
scruples. — Do you grow your own hemp? — What is your
staple trade, exclusive of the national profession, I mean?
Your lock-smiths, I take it, are some of your great
capitalists.
I am insensibly chatting to you as familiarly as when we
used to exchange good-morrows out of our old contiguous
windows, in pump-famed Hare Court in the Temple. Why
126
The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers
did you ever leave that quiet corner? — Why did I? — with
its complement of four poor elms, from whose smoke-dyed
barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first lady-
birds ! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves
in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is
between us ; a length of passage enough to render obsolete
the phrases of our English letters before they can reach
you. But while I talk, I think you hear me, — thoughts
dallying with vain surmise —
Aye me ! while thee the seas and sounding shores
Hold far away.
Come back, before I am grown into a very old man, so
as you shall hardly know me. Come, before Bridget walks
on crutches. Girls whom you left children have become
sage matrons, while you are tarrying there. The blooming
Miss W r ' (you remember Sally W r) called upon
us yesterday, an aged crone. Folks, whom you knew, die
off every year. Formerly, I thought that death was wearing
out, — I stood ramparted about with so many healthy friends.
The departure of J. W.,* two springs back corrected my
delusion. Since then the old divorcer has been busy. If
you do not make haste to return, there will be httle left to
greet you, of me, or mine.
THE PRAISE OF CHIMNEY-SWEEPERS.
I LIKE to meet a sweep — understand me — not a grown
sweeper — old chimney-sweepers are by no means attractive
— but one of those tender novices, blooming through their
first nigritude, the maternal washings not quite effaced
from the cheek — such as come forth with the dawn, or
somewhat earlier, with their little professional notes sound-
ing like the peep peep of a young sparrow; or liker to the
matin lark should I pronounce them, in their aerial ascents
not seldom anticipating the sun-rise ?
I have a kindly yearning toward these dim specks — poor
blots — innocent blacknesses —
I reverence these young Africans of our own growth —
these almost clergy imps, who sport their cloth without
assumption; and from their Uttle pulpits (the tops of
[' Winter.] [' James White.]
127
The Essays of Elia
chimneys), in the nipping air of a December morning,
preach a lesson of patience to mankind.
When a child, what a mysterious pleasure it was to
witness their operation ! to see a chit no bigger than one's-
self enter, one knew not by what process, into what seemed
the fauces Averni — to pursue him in imagination, as he
went sounding on through so many dark stifling caverns,
horrid shades ! — to shudder with the idea that " now,
surely, he must be lost for ever ! " — to revive at hearing
his feeble shout of discovered day-light — and then (O ful-
ness of delight) running out of doors, to come just in time
to see the sable phenomenon emerge in safety, the bran-
dished weapon of his art victorious like some flag waved
over a conquered citadel 1 I seem to remember having
been told, that a bad sweep was once left in a stack with
his brush, to indicate which way the wind blew. It was an
awful spectacle certainly ; not much unlike the old stage
direction in Macbeth, where the "Apparition of a child
crowned with a tree in his hand rises."
Reader, if thou meetest one of these small gentry in thy
early rambles, it is good to give him a penny. It is better to
give him two-pence. If it be starving weather, and to the
proper troubles of his hard occupation, a pair of kibed heels
(no unusual accompaniment) be superadded, the demand
on thy humanity will surely rise to a tester.
There is a composition, the ground-work of which I have
understood to be the sweet wood 'yclept sassafras. This
wood boiled down to a kind of tea, and tempered with an
infusion of milk and sugar, hath to some tastes a delicacy
beyond the China luxury. I know not how thy palate may
relish it ; for myself, with every deference to the judicious
Mr. Read, who hath time out of mind kept open a shop
(the only one he avers in London) for the vending of this
"wholesome and pleasant beverage," on the south side of
Fleet Street, as thou approachest Bridge Street — tlie only
Salopian house, — I have never yet ventured to dip my own
particular lip in a basin of his commended ingredients — a
cautious premonition to the olfactories constantly whisper-
ing to me, that my stomach must infallibly, with all due
courtesy, decline it. Yet I have seen palates, otherwise
not uninstructed in dietetical elegances, sup it up with
avidity.
I know not by what particular conformation of the organ
128
The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers
it happens, but I have always found that this composition
is surprisingly gratifying to the palate of a young chimney-
sweeper— whether the oily particles (sassafras is slightly
oleaginous) do attenuate and soften the fuliginous con-
cretions, which are sometimes found (in dissections) to
adhere to the roof of the mouth in these unfledged practi-
tioners ; or whether Nature, sensible that she had mingled
too much of bitter wood in the lot of these raw victims,
caused to grow out of the earth her sassafras for a sweet
lenitive — but so it is, that no possible taste or odour to the
senses of a young chimney-sweeper can convey a delicate
excitement comparable to this mixture. Being penniless,
they will yet hang their black heads over the ascending
steam, to gratify one sense if possible, seemingly no
less pleased than those domestic animals — cats — when
they purr over a new-found sprig of valerian. There is
something more in these sympathies than philosophy can
inculcate.
Now albeit Mr. Read boasteth, not without reason, that
his is the only Salopian house ; yet be it known to thee,
reader — if thou art one who keepest what are called good
hours, thou art haply ignorant of the fact — he hath a race of
industrious imitators, who from stalls, and under open sky,
dispense the same savoury mess to humbler customers, at
that dead time of the dawn, when (as extremes meet) the
rake, reeling home from his midnight cups, and the hard-
handed artisan leaving his bed to resume the premature
labours of the day, jostle, not unfrequently to the manifest
disconcerting of the former, for the honours of the pave-
ment. It is the time when, in summer, between the
expired and the not yet relumined kitchen-fires, the kennels
of our fair metropolis give forth their least satisfactory odours.
The rake, who wisheth to dissipate his o'er-night vapours in
more grateful coffee, curses the ungenial fume, as he
passeth ; but the artisan stops to taste, and blesses the
fragrant breakfast.
This is Saloop — the precocious herb-woman's darling —
the delight of the early gardener, who transports his
smoking cabbages by break of day from Hammersmith to
Covent Garden's famed piazzas — the delight, and, oh I
fear, too often the envy, of the unpennied sweep. Him
shouldest thou haply encounter, with his dim visage
pendent over the grateful steam, regale him with a sump-
I 129
The Essays of Elia
tuous basin (it will cost thee but three half-pennies) and a
slice of delicate bread and butter (an added halfpenny) — so
may thy culinary tires, eased of the o'er-charged secretions
from thy worse-placed hospitalities, curl up a lighter
volume to the welkin — so may the descending soot never
taint thy costly well-ingredienced soups — nor the odious
cry, quick-reaching from street to street, of the fired
chimney, invite the rattling engines from ten adjacent
parishes, to disturb for a casual scintillation thy peace and
pocket !
I am by nature extremely susceptible of street affronts ;
the jeers and taunts of the populace ; the low-bred triumph
they display over the casual trip, or splashed stocking, of a
gentleman. Yet can I endure the jocularity of a young
sweep with something more than forgiveness. — In the last
winter but one, pacing along Cheapside with my accustomed
precipitation when I walk westward, a treacherous slide
brought me upon my back in an instant. I scrambled up
with pain and shame enough — yet outwardly trying to face
it down, as if nothing had happened — when the roguish
grin of one of these young wits encountered me. There he
stood, pointing me out with his dusky finger to the mob,
and to a poor woman (I suppose his mother) in particular,
till the tears for the exquisiteness of the fun (so he thought
it) worked themselves out at the corners of his poor red
eyes, red from many a previous weeping, and soot-inflamed,
yet twinkling through all with such a joy, snatched out of
desolation, that Hogarth but Hogarth has got him
already (how could he miss him ?) in the March to Finchley,
grinning at the pie-man there he stood, as he stands
in the picture, irremovable, as if the jest was to last for
ever — with such a maximum of glee, and minimum
of mischief, in his mirth — for the grin of a genuine
sweep hath absolutely no malice in it — that I could
have been content, if the honour of a gentleman might
endure it, to have remained his butt and his mockery till
midnight.
I am by theory obdurate to the seductiveness of what
are called a fine set of teeth. Every pair of rosy lips (the
ladies must pardon me) is a casket, presumably holding
puch jewels ; but, methinks, they should take leave to " air"
them as frugally as possible. The fine lady, or fine gentle-
man, who show me their teeth, show me bones. Yet must
130
The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers
I confess, that from the mouth of a true sweep a display
(even to ostentation) of those white and shining ossifica-
tions, strikes me as an agreeable anomaly in manners, and
an allowable piece of foppery. It is, as when
A sable cloud
Turns forth her silver lining on the night.
It is like some remnant of gentry not quite extinct ; a
badge of better days ; a hint of nobility : — and, doubtless,
under the obscuring darkness and double night of their
forlorn disguisement, oftentimes lurketh good blood, and
gentle conditions, derived from lost ancestry, and a lapsed
pedigree. The premature apprenticements of these tender
victims give but too much encouragement, I fear, to
clandestine, and almost infantile abductions ; the seeds of
civility and true courtesy, so often discernible in these
young grafts (not otherwise to be accounted for) plainly
hint at some forced adoptions ; many noble Rachels
mourning for their children, even in our days, countenatice
the fact ; the tales of fairy-spiriting may shadow a lamentable
verity, and the recovery of the young Montagu be but a
solitary instance of good fortune, out of many irreparable
and hopeless defiliations.
In one of the state-beds at Arundel Castle, a few years
since — under a ducal canopy — (that seat of the Howards is
an object of curiosity to visitors, chiefly for its beds, in
which the late duke was especially a connoisseur) — en-
circled with curtains of delicatest crimson, with starry
coronets inwoven — folded between a pair of sheets whiter
and softer than the lap where Venus lulled Ascanius — was
discovered by chance, after all methods of search had failed,
at noon-day, fast asleep, a lost chimney sweeper. The
little creature, having somehow confounded his passage
among the intricacies of those lordly chimneys, by some un-
known aperture had alighted upon this magnificent chamber ;
and, tired with his tedious explorations, was unable to
resist the delicious invitement to repose, which he there
saw exhibited ; so, creeping between the sheets very quietly,
laid his black head upon the pillow, and slept like a young
Howard.
Such is the account given to the visitors at the Castle, —
But I cannot help seeming to perceive a confirmation of
what I have just hinted at in this story. A high instinct
131
The Essays of Elia
was at work in the case, or I am mistaken. Is it probable
that a poor child of that description, with whatever weari-
ness he might be visited, would have ventured, under such
a penalty, as he would be taught to expect, to uncover the
sheets of a Duke's bed, and deliberately to lay himself down
between them, when the rug, or the carpet, presented an
obvious couch, still far above his pretensions — is this prob-
able, I would ask, if the great power of nature, which I
contend for, had not been manifested within him, prompting
to the adventure? Doubtless this young nobleman (for
such my mind misgives me that he must be) was allured by
some memory, not amounting to full consciousness, of his
condition in infancy, when he was used to be lapt by his
mother, or his nurse, in just such sheets as he there found,
into which he was but now creeping back as into his proper
incunabula, and resting-place. — By no other theory, than
by this sentiment of a pre-existent state (as I may call it),
can I explain a deed so venturous, and, indeed, upon any
other system, so indecorous, in this tender, but unseasonable,
sleeper.
My pleasant friend Jem White was so impressed with a
belief of metamorphoses like this frequently taking place,
that in some sort to reverse the wrongs of fortune in these
poor changelings, he instituted an annual feast of chimney-
sweepers, at which it was his pleasure to officiate as host
and waiter. It was a solemn supper held in Smithfield,
upon the yearly return of the fair of St. Bartholomew.
Cards were issued a week before to the master-sweeps in and
about the metropolis, confining the invitation to their
younger fry. Now and then an elderly stripling would get in
among us, and be good-naturedly winked at ; but our main
body were infantry. One unfortunate wight, indeed, who
relying upon his dusky suit, had intruded himself into our
party, but by tokens was providentially discovered in time
to be no chimney-sweeper (all is not soot which looks so),
was quoited out of the presence with universal indignation,
as not having on the wedding garment ; but in general the
greatest harmony prevailed. The place chosen was a
convenient spot among the pens, at the north side of the
fair, not so far distant as to be impervious to the agreeable
huttbub of that vanity ; but remote enough not to be obvious
to the interruption of every gaping spectator in it. The
guests assembled about seven. In those little temporary
132
The Praise of Chimney-Sweepers
parlours three tables were spread with napery, not so fine
as substantial, and at every board a comely hostess presided
with her pan of hissing sausages. The nostrils of the young
rogues dilated at the savour. James White, as head waiter,
had charge of the first table ; and myself, with our trusty
companion ' Bigod, ordinarily ministered to the other two.
There was clambering and jostling, you may be sure, who
should get at the first table — for Rochester in his maddest
days could not have done the humours of the scene with
more spirit than my friend. After some general expression
of thanks for the honour the company had done him, his
inaugural ceremony was to clasp the greasy waist of old dame
Ursula (the fattest of the three), that stood frying and
fretting, half-blessing, half-cursing "the gentleman," and
imprint upon her chaste lips a tender salute, whereat the
universal host would set up a shout that tore the concave,
while hundreds of grinning teeth startled the night with
their brightness. O it was a pleasure to see the sable
younkers lick in the unctuous meat, with his more unctuous
sayings — how he would fit the tit-bits to the puny mouths,
reserving the lengthier links for the seniors — how he would
intercept a morsel even in the jaws of some young desperado,
declaring it "must to the pan again to be browned, for it
was not tit for a gentleman's eating" — how he would recom-
mend this slice of white bread, or that piece of kissing-crust,
to a tender juvenile, advising them all to have a care of
cracking their teeth, which were their best patrimony, — how
genteelly he would deal about the small ale, as if it were
wine, naming the brewer, and protesting, if it were not good
he should lose their custom ; with a special recommendation
to wipe the lip before drinking. Then we had our toasts —
"The King," — the" Cloth," — which, whether they understood
or not, was equally diverting and flattering ; — and for a
crowning sentiment, which never failed, " May the Brush
supersede the Laurel." All these, and fifty other fancies,
which were rather felt than comprehended by his guests,
would he utter, standing upon tables, and prefacing every
sentiment with a "Gentlemen, give me leave to propose so
and so," which was a prodigious comfort to those young
orphans ; every now and then stuffing into his mouth (for it
did not do to be squeamish on these occasions) indiscrimi-
nate pieces of those reeking sausages, which pleased them
[' John Fen wick.]
The Essays of Elia
mightily, and was the savouriest part, you may believe, of the
entertainment.
Golden lads and lasses must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust —
James White is extinct, and with him these suppers have
long ceased. He carried away with him half the fun of the
world when he died — of my world at least. His old clients
look for him among the pens; and, missing him, reproach
the altered feast of St. Bartholomew, and the glory of
Smithfield departed for ever.
A COMPLAINT OF THE DECAY OF
BEGGARS IN THE METROPOLIS.
The all-sweeping besom of societarian reformation — your
only modern Alcides's club to rid the time of its abuses —
is uplift with many-handed sway to extirpate the last flutter-
ing tatters of the bugbear Mendicity from the metropolis.
Scrips, wallets, bags — staves, dogs, and crutches — the whole
mendicant fraternity with all their baggage are fast posting
out of the purlieus of this eleventh persecution. From the
crowded crossing, from the corners of streets and turnings
of alleys, the parting Genius of Beggary is "with sighing
sent."
I do not approve of this wholesale going to work, this
impertinent crusado or bellum ad exterminaiionem, pro-
claimed against a species. Much good might be sucked
from these Beggars.
They were the oldest and the honourablest form of
pauperism. Their appeals were to our common nature ;
less revolting to an ingenuous mind than to be a suppliant
to the particular humours or caprice of any fellow-creature,
or set of fellow-creatures, parochial or societarian. Theirs
were the only rates uninvidious in the levy, ungrudged in
the assessment.
There was a dignity springing from the very depth of
their desolation ; as to be naked is to be so much nearer to
the being a man, than to go in livery.
The greatest spirits have felt this in their reverses; and
when Dionysius from king turned schoolmaster, do we feel
any thing towards him but contempt? Could Vandyke
On the Decay of Beggars
have made a picture of him, swaying a ferula for a sceptre,
which would have affected our minds with the same heroic
pity, the same compassionate admiration, with which we
regard his Belisarius begging for an obolus ? Would the
moral have been more graceful, more pathetic ?
The Blind Beggar in the legend — the father of pretty
Bessy — whose story doggrel rhymes and ale-house signs
cannot so degrade or attenuate, but that some sparks of a
lustrous spirit will shine through the disguisements — this
noble Earl of Cornwall (as indeed he was) and memorable
sport of fortune, fleeing from the unjust sentence of his
liege lord, stript of all, and seated on the flowering green of
Bethnal, with his more fresh and springing daughter by his
side, illumining his rags and his beggary — would the child
and parent have cut a better figure, doing the honours of a
counter, or expiating their fallen condition upon the three-
foot eminence of some sempstering shop-board?
In tale or history your Beggar is ever the just antipode
to your King. The poets and romancical writers (as dear
Margaret Newcastle would call them) when they would
most sharply and feelingly paint a reverse of fortune, never
stop till they have brought down their hero in good earnest
to rags and the wallet. The depth of the descent illustrates
the height he falls from. There is no medium which can
be presented to the imagination without offence. There
is no breaking the fall. Lear, thrown from his palace,
must divest him of his garments, till he answer " mere
nature;" and Cresseid, fallen from a prince's love, must
extend her pale arms, pale with other whiteness than of
beauty, supplicating lazar alms with bell and clapdish.
The Lucian wits knew this very well; and, with a con-
verse policy, when they would express scorn of great-
ness without the pity, they show us an Alexander in the
shades cobbling shoes, or a Semiramis, getting up foul
linen,
How would it sound in song, that a great monarch had
declined his affections upon the daughter of a baker ! yet
do we feel the imagination at all violated when we read
the "true ballad," where King Cophetua wooes the beggar
maid ?
Pauperism, pauper, poor man, are expressions of pity,
but pity alloyed with contempt. No one properly contemns
a beggar. Poverty is a comparative thing, and each degree
135
The Essays of Elia
of it is mocked by its "neighbour grice." Its poor rents
and comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its
pretences to poverty are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful
attempts to save excite a smile. Every scornful companion
can weigh his trifle-bigger purse against it. Poor man
reproaches poor man in the streets with impolitic mention
of his condition, his own being a shade better, while the
rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative
insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him.
He is not in the scale of comparison. He is not under the
measure of property. He confessedly hath none, any more
than a dog or a sheep. No one twitteth him with ostenta-
tion above his means. No one accuses him of pride, or
upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with
him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No
wealthy neighbour seeketh to eject him from his tenement.
No man sues him. No man goes to law with him. If I
were not the independent gentleman that I am, rather than
I would be a retainer to the great, a led captain or a poor
relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and true great-
ness of my mind, to be a Beggar.
Rags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's
robes, and graceful insignia of his profession, his tenure,
his full dress, the suit in which he is expected to show him-
self in public. He is never out of the fashion, or limpeth
awkwardly behind it. He is not required to put on court
mourning. He weareth all colours, fearing none. His
costume hath undergone less change than the Quaker's.
He is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to
study appearances. The ups and downs of the world con-
cern him no longer. He alone continueth in one stay.
The price of stock or land affecteth him not. The fluctua-
tions of agricultural or commercial prosperity touch him
not, or at worst but change his customers. He is not ex-
pected to become bail or surety for any one. No man
troubleth him with questioning his religion or politics. He
is the only free man in the universe.
The Mendicants of this great city were so many of her
sights, her lions. I can no more spare them than I could
the Cries of London. No corner of a street is complete
without them. They are as indispensable as the Ballad
Singer; and in their picturesque attire as ornamental as the
Signs of old London. They were the standing morals,
136
On the Decay of Beggars
emblems, mementos, dial-mottos, the spital sermons, the
books for children, the salutary checks and pauses to the
high and rushing tide of greasy citizenry —
Look
Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there.
Above all, those old blind Tobits that used to line the wall
of Lincoln's Inn Garden, before modern fastidiousness had
expelled them, casting up their ruined orbs to catch a ray
of pity, and (if possible) of light, with their faithful Dog
Guide at their feet, — whither are they filed ? or into what
corners, blind as themselves, have they been driven, out of
the wholesome air and sun-warmth ? immersed between
four walls, in what withering poor-house do they endure the
penalty of double darkness, where the chink of the dropt
half-penny no more consoles their forlorn bereavement, far
from the sound of the cheerful and hope-stirring tread of the
passenger ? Where hang their useless staves ? and who
will farm their dogs? — Have the overseers of St L.'
caused them to be shot? or were they tied up in sacks, and
dropt into the Thames, at the suggestion of B , the mild
Rector of ?
Well fare the soul of unfastidious Vincent Bourne, most
classical, and at the same time, most English, of the
Latinists ! — who has treated of this human and quadru-
pedal alliance, this dog and man friendship, in the sweetest
of his poems, the Epitaphium in Canem, or Dog's Epitaph.
Reader, peruse it ; and say, if customary sights, which could
call up such gentle poetry as this, were of a nature to do
more harm or good to the moral sense of the passengers
through the daily thoroughfares of a vast and busy
ar-etropolis.
Pauperis hie Iri requiesco Lyciscus, herilis,
Dum vixi, tutela vigil columenque senectae,
Dux caeco fidus : nee, me ducente, solebat,
Prsetenso hinc atque hine baculo, per iniqua locorum
Incertam explorare viam ; sed fila secntus,
Quae dubios regerent passds, vestigia tuta
Fixit inoffenso gressu ; gelidumque sedile
In nudo naetus saxo, qua praetereuntium
Unda frequens confluxit, ibi miserisque tenebras
Lamentis, noctemque oculis ploravit obortam.
Ploravit nee frustra; obolum dedit alter et alter.
[' St L. and B., both imaginary.]
The Essays of Elia
Queis corda et mentem indiderat natura benignam.
Ad latus interea jacui sopitus herile,
Vel mediis vigil in somnis ; ad herilia jussa
Auresque atque aninum arrectus, seu frustula amice
Porrexit sociasque dapes, seu longa diei
Tredia perpessus, red i turn sub nocte parabat.
Hi mores, htec vita fuit, dum fata sinebant,
Dum neque languebam morbis, nee inerte senec'.a ;
Quae tandem obrepsit, veterique satellite csecum
Orbavit dominum : prisci sed gratia facti
Ne tota intereat, longos deleta per annos,
Exiguum hunc Irus lumulum de cespite fecit,
Etsi inopis, non ingratas, munuscula dextrse ;
Carmine signavitque brevi, dominumque canemque
Quod memoret, fidumque canem dominumque benignum.
Poor Irus' faithful wolf-dog here I lie,
That wont to tend my old blind master's steps,
His guide and guard : nor, while my service lasted,
H.id he occasion for that staff, with which
He now goes picking out his path in fear
Over the highways and crossings ; but would plant,
Safe in the conduct of my friendly string,
A firm foot forward still, till he hath reach'd
His poor seat on some stone, nigh where the tide
Of passers by in thickest confluence flow'd :
To whom with loud and passionate laments
From morn to eve his dark estate he wail'd.
Nor wail'd to all in vain : soine here and there,
The well-disposed and good, their pennies gave.
I meantime at his feet obsequious slept;
Not all-asleep in sleep, but heart and ear
Prick'd up at his least motion ; to receive
At his kind hand my customary crumbs,
And common portion ol his feast of scraps ;
Or when night warn'd us homeward, tired and spent
With our lon<4 day and tedious beggary.
These were my manners, this my way of life,
Till age and slow disease me overtook.
Anil sever'd from my sightless master's side.
But lest the grace of so good deeds should die,
Through tract of years in mute oblivion los',
This slender tomb of turf hath Irus reared,
Cheip monument of no ungrudging hand,
And with short verse inscribed it, to attest.
In Ktng and lasting union to attest,
The virtues of the beggar and his Dog.
These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months
past a well-knovrn figure, or part of the figure, of a man,
who used to glide his comely upper half over the pave-
ments of London, wheeling along with most ingenious
138
On the Decay of Beggars
celerity upon a machine of wood ; a spectacle to natives,
to foreigners, and to children. He was of a robust make,
with a florid sailor-like complexion, and his head was
bare to the storm and sunshine. He was a natural
curiosity, a speculation to the scientific, a prodigy to the
simple. The infant would stare at the mighty man brought
down to his own level. The common cripple would
despise his own pusillanimity, viewing the hale stoutness,
and hearty heart, of this half-limbed giant. Few but must
have noticed him ; for the accident, which brought him
low, took place during the riots of 1780, and he has been a
groundling so long. He seemed earth-born, an Antaeus,
and to suck in fresh vigour from the soil which he
neighboured. He was a grand fragment ; as good as an
Elgin marble. The nature, which should have recruited
his reft legs and thighs, was not lost, but only retired into
his upper parts, and he was «half a Hercules. I heard a
tremendous voice thundering and growling, as before an
earthquake, and casting down my eyes, it was this man-
drake reviling a steed that had started at his portentous
appearance. He seemed to want but his just stature to
have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. He was as
the man-part of a Centaur, from which the horse-half had
had been cloven in some dire Lapithan controversy. He
moved on, as if he could have made shift with yet half of
the body-portion which was left him. The os sublime was
not wanting ; and he threw out yet a jolly countenance
upon the heavens. Forty-and-two years had he driven this
out of door trade, and now that his hair is grizzled in the
service, but his good spirits no way impaired, because he
is not content to exchange his free air and exercise for the
restraints of a poor-house, he is expiating his contumacy in
one of those houses (ironically christened) of Correction.
Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance,
which called for legal interference to remove? or not rather
a salutary and a touching object, to the passers-by in a
great city? Among her showSj her museums, and supplies
for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but an accumula-
tion of sights — endless sights — is a great city ; or for what
else is it desirable?) was there not room for one Lusus (not
NaturcB, indeed, but) Accidentium ? What if in forty-and-
two years' going about, the man had scraped together
enough to give a portion to his child (as the rumour ran) of
139
The Essays of Elia
a few hundreds — whom had he injured? — whom had he
imposed upon ? The contributors had enjoyed their sight
for their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to
the heats, the rains, and the frosts of heaven — shuffling his
ungainly trunk along in an elaborate and painful motion —
he was enabled to retire at night to enjoy himself at a club
of his fellow cripples over a dish of hot meat and vege-
tables, as the charge was gravely brought against him by
a clergyman deposing before a House of Commons'
Committee — was this^ or was his truly paternal considera-
tion, which (if a fact) deserved a staiue rather than a
whipping-post, and is inconsistent at least with the ex-
ag'^eration of nocturnal orgies which he has been slandered
with — a reason that he should be deprived of his chosen,
harmless, nay edifying, way of life, and be committed in
hoary age for a sturdy vagabond? —
There was a Yorick onc«, whom it would not have
shamed to have sate down at the cripples' feast, and to
have thrown in his benediction, ay, and his mite too, for
a companionable symbol. "Age, thou hast lost thy
breed."—
Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made
by begging are (I verily believe) misers' calumnies. One
was much talked of in the public papers some time since,
and the usual charitable inferences deduced. A clerk in
the Rank was surprised with the announcement of a five
hundred pound legacy left him by a person whose name he
was a stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning
walks from Peckham (or some village thereabouts) where
he lived, to his ofifice, it had been his practice for the last
twenty years to drop his halfpenny duly into the hat of
some blind Bartimeus, that sate begging alms by the way-
side in the Borough. The good old beggar recognised his
daily benefactor by the voice only ; and, when he died, left
all the amassings of his alms (that had been half a century
perhaps in the accumulating) to his old Bank friend. Was
this a story to purse up people's hearts, and pennies,
against giving an alms to the blind? — or not rather a
beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part,
and noble gratitude upon the other?
I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk.
I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature,
blinking, and looking up with his no eyes in the sun —
140
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig
Is it possible I could have steeled my purse against him ?
Perhaps I had no small change.
Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words, im-
position, imposture — give, and ask no questions. Cast thy
bread upon the waters. Some have unawares (like this
Bank clerk) entertained angels.
Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress.
Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly
and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire
whether the "seven small children," in whose name he im-
plores thy assistance, have a veritable existence. Rake not
into the bowels of unwelcome truth, to save a halfpenny.
It is good to believe him. If he be not all that he pre-
tendeth, give, and under a personate father of a family,
think (if thou pleasest) that thou hast relieved an indigent
bachelor. When they come with their counterfeit looks,
and mumping tones, think them players. You pay your
money to see a comedian feign these things, which, con-
cerning these poor people, thou canst not certainly tell
whether they are feigned or not.
A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG.
Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M.'
was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the
first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or
biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia
to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by
their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane
Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by
the term Cho-fang, literally the Cook's holiday. The
manuscipt goes on to say, that the art of roasting, or rather
broiling) which I take to be the elder brother (was accident-
ally discovered in the manner following. The swine-herd,
Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his
manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in
the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who
being fond of playing with fire, as younkers of his age
commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of
straw, which kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over
[' Thomas Manning.]
141
The Essays of Elia
every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to
ashes. Together with the cottage (a sorry antediluvian
make-shift of a building, you may think it), what was of
much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs,
no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have
been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest
periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in utmost consterna-
tion, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the
tenement, which his father and he could easily build up
again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or
two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was
thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his
hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely
sufferers, an odour assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent
which he had before experienced. What could it proceed
from ? — not from the burnt cottage — he had smelt that
smell before — indeed this was by no means the first accident
of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of
this unlucky young fire-brand. Much less did it resemble
that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory
moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip.
He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to
feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt
his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby
fashion to his mouth. Some of the crums of the scorched
skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time
in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man
had known it) he tasted — crackling I Again he felt and
fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now,
still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth
at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the
pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and,
surrendering himself up to the newborn pleasure, he fell to
tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the
flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his
beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking
rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how
affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue's
shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not
any more than if they had been flies. The tickling
pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had
rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might
feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on,
142
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig
but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly
made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible
of his situation, something like the following dialogue
ensued.
" You graceless whelp, what have you got there devour-
ing ? Is it not enough that you have burnt me down
three houses with your dog's tricks, and be hanged to you,
but you must be eating fire, and I know not what — what
have you got there, I say ? "
" O, father, the pig, the pig, do come and taste how nice
the burnt pig eats."
The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his
son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son
that should eat burnt big.
Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since
morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending
it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the
fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out " Eat, eat, eat the
burnt pig, father, only taste — O Lord," — with such-like
barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he
would choke.
Ho-ti trembled every joint while he grasped the abomin-
able thing, wavering whether he should not put his son to
death for an unnatural young monster, when the crackling
scorching his fingers, as it had done his son's, and applying
the same remedy to them, he in his turn tasted some of its
flavour, which, make what sour mouths he would for a
pretence, proved not altogether displeasing to him. In
conclusion (for the manuscript here is a little tedious)
both father and son fairly sat down to the mess, and never
left off till they had despatched all that remained of the
litter.
Bo-bo was strictly enjoined not to let the secret escape,
for the neighbours would certainly have stoned them for a
couple of abominable wretches, who could think of improv-
ing upon the good meat which God had sent them. Never-
theless, strange stories got about. It was observed that
Ho-ti's cottage was burnt down now more frequently than
ever. Nothing but fires from this time forward. Some
would break out in broad day, others in the night-time.
As often as the sow farrowed, so sure was the house of
Ho-ti to be in a blaze; and Ho-ti himself, which was the
more remarkable, instead of chastising his son, seemed to
M3
The Essays of Elia
grovr more indulgent to him than ever. At length they
were watched, the terrible mystery discovered, and father
and son summoned to take their trial at Pekin, then an
inconsiderable assize town. Evidence was given, the
obnoxious food itself produced in court, and verdict about
to be pronounced, when the foreman of the jury begged
that some of the burnt pig, of which the culprits stood
accused, might be handed into the box. He handled it,
and they all handled it, and burning their fingers, as Bo-bo
and his father had done before them, and nature prompting
to each of them the same remedy, against the face of all
the facts, and the clearest charge which judge had ever
given, — to the surprise of the whole court, townsfolk,
strangers, reporters, and all present — without leaving the
box, or any manner of consultation whatever, they brought
in a simultaneous verdict of Not Guilty.
The judge, who was a shrewd fellow, winked at the
manifest iniquity of the decision ; and, when the court was
dismissed, went privily, and bought up all the pigs that
could be had for love or money. In a few days his Lord-
ship's town house was observed to be on fire. The thing
took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen but fires
in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously dear
all over the district. The insurance offices one and all
shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day,
until it was feared that the very science of architecture
would in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this
custom of firing houses continued, till in process of time,
says my manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who
made a discovery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any
other animal, might be cooked {burtit, as they called it)
without the necessity of consuming a whole house to dress
it. Then first began the rude form of a gridiron. Roast-
ing by the string, or spit, came in a century or two later, I
forget in whose dynasty. By such slow degrees, concludes
the manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the
most obvious arts, make their way among mankind.
Without placing too implicit faith in the account above
given, it must be agreed, that if a worthy pretext for so
dangerous an experiment as setting houses on fire (especi-
ally in these days) could be assigned in favour of any
culinary object, that pretext and excuse might be found in
ROAST PIG.
144
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig
Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will
maintain it to be the most delicate — princeps obsoniorum.
I speak not of your grown porkers — things between pig
and pork — those hobbydehoys — but a young and tender
suckling — under a moon old — guiltless as yet of the sty —
with no original speck of the amor tmmunditice, the here-
ditary failing of the first parent, yet manifest — his voice as
yet not broken, but something between a childish treble,
and a grumble — the mild forerunner, or prcBludtum, of a grunt.
He must be roasted. I am not ignorant that our ancestors
ate them seethed, or boiled — but what a sacrifice of the
exterior tegument !
There is no flavour comparable, I will contend, to that
of the crisp, tawny, well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling,
as it is well called — the very teeth are invited to their share
of the pleasure at this banquet in overcoming the coy,
brittle resistance — with the adhesive oleaginous — O call it
not fat — but an indefinable sweetness growing up to it — the
tender blossoming of fat — fat cropped in the bud — taken in
the shoot — in the first innocence — the cream and quint-
essence of the child-pig's yet pure food the lean, no
lean, but a kind of animal manna — or, rather, fat and lean,
(if it must be so) so blended and running into each other,
that both together make but one ambrosian result, or
common substance.
Behold him, while he is doing — it seemeth rather a re-
freshing warmth, than a scorching heat, that he is so
passive to. How equably he twirleth round the string ! —
Now he is just done. To see the extreme sensibility of
that tender age, he hath wept out his pretty eyes — radiant
jellies — shooting stars —
See him in the dish, his second cradle, how meek he
lieth ! — woiildst thou have had this innocent grow up to the
grossness and indocility which too often accompany
maturer swinehood? Ten to one he would have proved a
glutton, a sloven, an obstinate, disagreeable animal —
wallowing in all manner of filthy conversation — from these
sins he is happily snatched away —
Ere sin could blight, or sorrow fade.
Death came with timely care —
his memory is odoriferous — no clown curseth, while his
stomach half rejecteth, the rank bacon — no coalheaver
K 145
The Essays of Elia
bolteth him in reeking sausages — he hath a fair sepulchre
in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure — and for
such a tomb might be content to die.
He is the best of Sapors. Pine-apple is great. She is
indeed almost too transcendent — a delight, if not sinful, yet
so like to sinning, that really a tender-conscienced person
would do well to pause — too ravishing for mortal taste, she
woundeth and excoriateth the lips that approach her — like
lovers' kisses, she biteth — she is a pleasure bordering on
pain from the fierceness and insanity of her relish — but she
stoppeth at the palate — she meddleth not with the appetite
— and the coarsest hunger might barter her consistently for
a mutton chop.
Pig — let me speak his praise — is no less provocative of
the appetite, than he is satisfactory to the criticalness of
the censorious palate. The strong man may batten on him,
and weakling refuseth not his mild juices.
Unlike to mankind's mixed characters, a bundle of
virtues and vices, inexplicably intertwisted, and not to be
unravelled without hazard, he is — good throughout. No
part of him is better or worse than another. He helpeth,
as far as his little means extend, all around. He is the
least envious of banquets. He is all neighbours' fare.
I am one of those, who freely and ungrudgingly impart
a share of the good things of this life which fall to their lot
(few as mine are in this kind) to a friend. I protest I take
as great an interest in my friend's pleasures, his relishes,
and proper satisfactions, as in mine own. "Presents," I
often say, " endear Absents." Hares, pheasants, partridges,
snipes, barn-door chickens (those "tame villatic fowl"),
capons, plovers, brawn, barrels of oysters, I dispense as
freely as I receive them. 1 love to taste them, as it were,
upon the tongue of my friend. But a stop must be put
somewhere. One would not, like Lear, "give everything."
I make my stand upon pig. Methinks it is an ingratitude
to the Giver of all good flavours, to extra-domiciliate, or
send out of the house, slightingly (under pretext of friend-
ship, or I know not what) a blessing so particularly adapted,
predestined, I may say, to my individual palate — It argues
an insensibility.
I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school.
My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end
of a holiday without stuffing a sweetmeat, or some nice
146
A Dissertation upon Roast Pig
thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with
a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven. In my way to
school (it was over London Bridge) a grey-headed old
beggar saluted me (I have no doubt at this time of day that
he was a counterfeit). I had no pence to console him with,
and in the vanity of self-denial, and the very coxcombry of
charity, school-boy-like, I made him a present of — the
whole cake ! I walked on a little, buoyed up, as one is on
such occasions, with a sweet soothing of self-satisfaction ;
but before I had got to the end of the bridge, my better
feelings returned, and I burst into tears, thinking how
ungrateful I had been to my good aunt, to go and give her
good gift away to a stranger, that I had never seen before,
and who might be a bad man for aught I knew ; and then
I thought of the pleasure my aunt would be taking in
thinking that I — I myself, and not another — would eat her
nice cake — and what should I say to her the next time I
saw her — how naughty I was to part with her pretty
present — and the odour of that spicy cake came back upon
my recollection, and the pleasure and the curiosity I had
taken in seeing her make it, and her joy when she sent it
to the oven, and how disappointed she would feel that I
had never had a bit of it in my mouth at last — and I
blamed my impertinent spirit of alms-giving, and out-of-place
hypocrisy of goodness, and above all I wished never to see
the face again of that insidious, good-for-nothing, old grey
impostor.
Our ancestors were nice in their method of sacrificing
these tender victims. We read of pigs whipt to death with
something of a shock, as we hear of any other obsolete
custom. The age of discipline is gone by, or it would be
curious to inquire (in a philosophical light merely) what
effect this process might have towards intenerating and
dulcifying a substance, naturally so mild and dulcet as the
flesh of young pigs. It looks like refining a violet. Yet
we should be cautious, while we condemn the inhumanity,
how we censure the wisdom of the practice. It might
impart a gusto —
I remember an hypothesis, argued upon by the young
students, when I was at St. Omer's, and maintained with
much learning and pleasantry on both sides, "Whether,
supposing that the flavour of a pig who obtained his death
by whipping {per fiagellationem exiremam) superadded a
147
The Essays of Elia
pleasure upon the palate of a man more intense than any
possible suffering we can conceive in the animal, is man
justified in using that method of putting the animal to
death? " I forget the decision.
His sauce should be considered. Decidedly, a few
bread crumbs, done up with his liver and brains, and a
dash of mild sage. But, banish, dear Mrs. Cook, I beseech
you, the whole onion tribe. Barbecue your whole hogs to
your palate, steep them in shalots, stuff them out with
plantations of the rank and guilty garlic ; you cannot
poison them, or make them stronger than they are — but
consider, he is a weakling — a flower.
A BACHELOR'S COMPLAINT OF THE
BEHAVIOUR OF MARRIED PEOPLE.
As a single man, I have spent a good deal of my time in
noting down the infirmities of Married People, to console
myself for those superior pleasures, which they tell me I
have lost by remaining as I am.
I cannot say that the quarrels of men and their wives
ever made any great impression upon me, or had much
tendency to strengthen me in those anti-social resolutions,
which I took up long ago upon more substantial considera-
tions. What oftenest offends me at the houses of married
persons where I visit, is an error of quite a different
description ; — it is that they are too loving.
Not too loving neither : that does not explain my mean-
ing. Besides, why should that offend me ? The very act
of separating themselves from the rest of the world, to have
the fuller enjoyment of each other's society, implies that
they prefer one another to all the world.
But what I complain of is, that they carry this preference
so undisguisedly, they perk it up in the faces of us single
people so shamelessly, you cannot be in their company a
moment without being made to feel, by some indirect
hint or open avowal, that yoji are not the object of this
preference. Now there are some things which give no
oflTence, while implied or taken for granted merely; but
expressed, there is much offence in them. If a man were
to accost the first homely-featured or plain-dressed young
148
A Bachelor's Complaint
woman of his acquaintance, and tell her bluntly, that she
was not handsome or rich enough for him, and he could
not marry her, he would deserve to be kicked for his ill
manners ; yet no less is implied in the fact, that having
access and opportunity of putting the question to her, he
has never yet thought fit to do it. The young woman
understands this as clearly as if it were put into words;
but no reasonable young woman would think of making
this a ground of a quarrel. Just as little right have a
married couple to tell me by speeches and looks that are
scarce less plain than speeches, that I am not the happy
man, — the lady's choice. It is enough that I knew that
I am not : I do not want this perpetual reminding.
The display of superior knowledge or riches may be
made sufficiently mortifying : but these admit of a
palliative. The knowledge which is brought out to insult
me, may accidentally improve me ; and in the rich man's
houses and pictures, — his parks and gardens, I have a
temporary usufruct at least. But the display of married
happiness has none of these palliatives ; it is throughout
pure, unreconipensed, unqualified insult.
Marriage by its best title is a monopoly, and not of the
least invidious sort. It is the cunning of most possessors
of any exclusive privilege to keep their advantage as much
out of sight as possible, that their less favoured neighbours,
seeing little of the benefit, may the less be disposed to
question the right. But these married monopolists thrust
the most obnoxious part of their patent into our faces.
Nothing is to me more distasteful than that entire com-
placency and satisfaction which beam in the countenances
of a new-married couple, — in that of the lady particularly ;
it tells you, that her lot is disposed of in this world; that
you can have no hopes of her. It is true, I have none ;
nor wishes either, perhaps; but this is one of those truths
which ought, as I said before, to be taken for granted, not
expressed.
The excessive airs which those people give themselves,
founded on the ignorance of us unmarried people, would
be more off'ensive if they were less irrational. We will
allow them to understand the mysteries belonging to their
own craft better than we who have not had the happiness
to be made free of the company : but their arrogance is not
content within these limits. If a single person presume to
149
The Essays of Elia
offer his opinion in their presence, though upon the most
indifferent subject, he is immediately silenced as an in-
competent person. Nay, a young married lady of my
acquaintance who, the best of the jest was, had not changed
her condition above a fortnight before, in a question on
which I had the misfortune to differ from her, respecting
the properest mode of breeding oysters for the London
market, had the assurance to ask with a sneer, how such an
old Bachelor as I could pretend to know anything about
such matters.
But what I have spoken of hitherto is nothing to the
airs which these creatures give themselves when they come,
as they generally do, to have children. When I consider
how little of a rarity children are, — that every street and
blind alley swarms with them, — that the poorest people
commonly have them in most abundance, — that there
are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of
these bargains, — how often they turn out ill, and defeat
the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses,
which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, &c. — I cannot
for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be
in having them. If they were young phoenixes, indeed,
that were born but one in a year, there might be a pretext.
But when they are so common
I do not advert to the insolent merit which they assume
with their husbands on these occasions. Let them look to
that. But why we, who are not their natural-born subjects,
should be expected to bring our spices, myrrh, and incense,
— our tribute and homage of admiration, — I do not see.
" Like as the arrows in the hand of the giant, even
so are the young children :" so says the excellent office in
our Prayer-book appointed for the churching of women.
"Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them:''
So say I ; but then don't let him discharge his quiver upon
us that are weaponless ; — let them be arrows, but not to
gal! and stick us. I have gener.illy observed that these
arrows are double-headed ; they have two forks, to be sure
to hit with one or the other. As for instance, where you
come into a house which is full of children, if you har-pen
to take no notice of them (you are thinking of something
else, perhaps, and turn a deaf ear to their innocent
caresses), you are set down as untractable, morose, a hater
of children. On the other hand, if you find them more
i;o
A Bachelor's Complaint
than usually engaging, — if you are taken with their pretty
manners, and set about in earnest to romp and play with
them, some pretext or other is sure to be found for sending
them out of the room : they are too noisy or boisterous, or
Mr. does not like children. With one or other of
these forks the arrow is sure to hit you.
I could forgive their jealousy, and dispense with toying
with their brats, if it gives them any pain ; but I think it
unreasonable to be called upon to love them, where I see no
occasion, — to love a whole family, perhaps, eight, nine, or
ten, indiscriminately, — to love all the pretty dears- because
children are so engaging.
I know there is a proverb, " Love me, love my dog : "
that is not always so very practicable, particularly if the
dog be set upon you to tease you or snap at you in sport.
But a dog, or a lesser thing, — any inanimate substance, as
a keepsake, a watch or a ring, a tree, or the place where we
last parted when my friend went away upon a long
absence, I can make shift to love, because I love him, and
anything that reminds me of him ; provided it be in its
nature indiflferent, and apt to receive whatever hue fancy
can give it. But children have a real character and an
essential being of themselves : they are amiable or unami-
able/^ri^<?; I must love or hate them as I see cause for
either in their qualities. A child's nature is too serious a
thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage
to another being, and to be loved or hated accordingly :
they stand with me upon their own stock, as much as men
and women do. O ! but you will say, sure it is an attrac-
tive age, — there is something in the tender years of infancy
that of itself charms us. That is the very reason why I am
more nice about them. I know that a sweet child is the
sweetest thing in nature, not even excepting the delicate
creatures which bear them ; but the prettier the kind of a
thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of
its kind. One daisy differs not much from another in
glory; but a violet should look and sn.ell the dnntiest. —
I was always rather squeamish in my women and children.
But this is not the worst : one must be admitted into
their familiarity at least, bt^ore they can complain of in-
attention. It implies visits, and some kind of intercourse.
But if the husband be a iian with whom you have lived on
a friendly footing befoi-e marriage, — if you did not come in
The Essays of Elia
on the wife's side, — if you did not sneak into the house in
her train, but were an old friend in fast habits of intimacy
before their courtship was so much as thought on, — look
about you — your tenure is precarious — before a twelve-
month shall roll over your head, you shall find your old
friend gradually grow cool and altered towards you, and at
last seek opportunities of breaking with you. I have scarce
a married friend of my acquaintance, upon whose firm
faith I can rely, whose friendship did not commence after
the period of his marriage. With some limitations they can
endure that : but that the good man should have dared to
enter into a solemn league of friendship in which they were
not consulted, though it happened before they knew him,
— before they that are now man and wife ever met, — this is
intolerable to them. Every long friendship, every old
authentic intimacy, must be brought into their office to be
new stamped with their currency, as a sovereign Prince
calls in the good old money that was coined in some reign
before he was born or thought of, to be new marked and
minted with the stamp of his authority, before he will let it
pass current in the world. You may guess what luck
generally befalls such a rusty piece of metal as I am in
these new mijitings.
Innumerable are the ways which they take to insult and
worm you out of their husband's confidence. Laughing at
all you say with a kind of wonder, as if you were a queer
kind of fellow that said good things, but an oddity^ is one of
the ways ; — they have a particular kind of stare for the
purpose; — till at last the husband, who used to defer to
your judgment, and would pass over some excrescences of
understanding and manner for the sake of a general vein of
observation (not quite vulgar) which he perceived in you,
begins to suspect whether you are not altogether a humorist,
— a fellow well enough to have consorted with in his
bachelor days, but not quite so proper to be introduced to
ladies. This may be called the staring way ; and is that
which has oftenest been put in practice against me.
Then there is the exaggerating way, or the way of irony :
that is, where they find you an object of especial regard
with their husband, who is not so easily to be shaken from
the lasting attachment founded on esteem which he has
conceived towards you ; by never-qualified exaggerations to
cry up all that you say or do, till the good man, who under-
A Bachelor's Complaint
stands well enough that it is all done in compliment to him,
grows weary of the debt of gratitude which is due to so
much candour, and by relaxing a little on his part, and
taking down a peg or two in his enthusiasm, sinks at length
to that kindly level of moderate esteem, — that "decent
affection and complacent kindness " towards you, where she
herself can join in sympathy with him without much stretch
and violence to her sincerity.
Another way (for the ways they have to accomplish so
desirable a purpose are infinite) is, with a kind of innocent
simplicity, continually to mistake what it was which first
made their husband fond of you. If an esteem for some-
thing excellent in your moral character was that which
riveted the chain which she is to break, iipon any imaginary
discovery of a want of poignancy in your conversation, she
will cry, "I thought, my dear, you described your friend,
Mr. as a great wit." If, on the other hand, it was for
some supposed charm in your conversation that he first
grew to like you, and was content for this to overlook some
trifling irregularities in your moral deportment, upon the
first notice of any of these she as readily exclaims, "This,
my dear, is your good Mr. ." One good lady whom I
took the liberty of expostulating with for not showing me
quite so much respect as I thought due to her husband's
old friend, had the candour to confess to me that she had
often heard Mr. speak of me before marriage, and
that she had conceived a great desire to be acquainted with
me, but that the sight of me had very much disappointed
her expectations ; for from her husband's representations
of me, she had formed a notion that she was to see a fine,
tall, officer-like looking man (I use her very words) ; the
very reverse of which proved to be the truth. This was
candid; and I had the civility not to ask her in return, how
she came to pitch upon a standard of personal accomplish-
ments for her husband's friends which differed so much
from his own ; for my friend's dimensions as near as possible
approximate to mine ; he stands five feet five in his shoes,
in which I have the advantage of him by about half an
inch ; and he no more than myself exhibiting any indica-
tions of a martial character in his air or countenance.
These are some of the mortifications which I have
encountered in the absurd attempt to visit at their houses.
To enumerate them all would be a vain endeavour ; I shall
153
The Essays of Elia
therefore just glance at tke very common impropriety of
which married ladies are guilty, — of treating us as if we
were their husbands, and vice versa. I mean, when they
use us with familiarity, and their husbands with ceremony.
Testacea, for instance, kept me the other night two or three
hours beyond my usual time of supping, while she was
fretting because Mr. did not come home, till the
oysters were all spoiled, rather than she would be guilty of
the impoliteness of touching one in his absence. This was
reversing the point of good manners: for ceremony is an
invention to take off the uneasy feeling which we derive
from knowing ourselves to be less the object of love and
esteem with a fellow-creature than some other person is.
It endeavours to make up, by superior attentions in little
points, for that invidious preference which it is forced to
deny in the greater. Had Testacea kept the oysters back
for me, and withstood her husband's importunities to go to
supper, she would have acted according to the strict rules
of propriety. I know no ceremony that ladies are bound
to observe to their husbands, beyond the point of a modest
behaviour and decorum : therefore I must protest against
the vicarious gluttony of Cerasia, who at her own table
sent away a dish of Morellas, which I was applying to with
great good will, to her husband at the other end of the
table, and recommended a plate of less extraordinary
gooseberries to myunwedded palate in their stead. Neither
can I excuse the wanton affront of .
But I am weary of stringing up all my married acquaint-
ance by Roman denominations. Let them amend and
change their manners, or I promise to record the full-length
English of their names, to the terror of all such desperate
offenders in future.
ON SOME OF THE OLD ACTORS.
The casual sight of an old Play Bill, which I picked up the
other day — I know not by what chance it was preserved so
long — temp;s me to call to mind a few of the Players, who
make the principal figure in it. It presents the cast of
parts in the Fwelfth Night, at the old Drury Lane Theatre
two-and-thirty years ago. There is something very touch-
154
On Some of the Old Actors
ing in these old remembrances. They make us think how
we once used to read a Play Bill — not, as now peradventure,
singling out a favourite performer, and casting a negligent
eye over the rest ; but spelling out every name, down to the
very mutes and servants of the scene ; — when it was a matter
of no small moment to us whether Whitfield, or Packer, took
the part of Fabian ; when Benson, and Burton, and Philli-
more — names of small account — had an importance, bey* nd
what we can be content to attribute now to the time's best
actors. — " Orsino, by Mr. Barrymore." — What a full
Shakspearian sound it carries ! how fresh to memory arise
the image, and the manner, of the gentle actor !
Those who have only seen Mrs. Jordan within the last
ten or fifteen years, can have no adequate notion of her
performance of such parts as Ophelia ; Helena, in All's
Well that Ends Well ; and Viola in this play. Her voice
had latterly acquired a coarseness, which suited well enough
with her Nells and Hoydens, but in those days it sank,
with her steady melting eye, into the heart. Her joyous
parts — in which her memory now chiefly lives — in her
youth were outdone by her plaintive ones. There is no
giving an account how she delivered the disguised story of
her love for Orsino. It was no set speech, that she had
foreseen, so as to weave it into an harmonious period, line
necessarily following line, to make up the music — yet I
have heard it so spoken, or rather read, not without its grace
and beauty — but, when she had declared her sister's history
to be a "blank," and that she "never told her love,"
there was a pause, as if the story had ended— and then the
image of the " worm in the bud " came up as a new
suggestion — and the heightened image of " Patience " still
followed after that, as by some growing (and not mechanical)
process, thought springing up after thought, I would almost
say, as they were watered by her tears. So in those fine
lines —
Write loyal cantos of contemned love-
Hollow your name to the reverberate hills —
there was no preparation made in the foregoing image for
that which was to follow. She used no rhetoric in her
passion ; or it was nature's own rhetoric, most legitimate
then, when it seemed altogether without rule or law.
Mrs. Powel (now Mrs. Renard), then in the pride of her
155
The Essays of Elia
beauty, made an a-^mirable Olivia. She was particularly
excellent in her unbending scenes in conversation with the
Clown. I have seen some Olivias — and those very sensible
actresses too — who in those interlocutions have seemed to
set their wits at the jester, and to vie conceits with him in
downright emulation. But she used him for her sport,
like what he was, to trifle a leisure sentence or two with,
and then to be dismissed, and she to be the Great Lady
still. She touched the imperious fantastic humour ofthe
character with nicety. Her fine spacious person filled the
scene.
The part of Malvolio has in my judgment been so often
misunderstood, and the general merits of the actor, who
then played it, so unduly appreciated, that I shall hope for
pardon, if I am a little prolix upon these points.
Of all the actors who flourished in my time — a melan-
choly phrase if taken aright, reader — Bensley had most of
the swell of soul, was greatest in the delivery of heroic con-
ceptions, the emotions consequent upon the presentment
of a great idea to the fancy. He had the true poetical
enthusiasm — the rarest faculty among players. None that
I remember possessed even a portion of that fine madness
which he threw out in Hotspur's famous rant about glory,
or the transports of the Venetian incendiary at the vision
of the fired city. His voice had the dissonance, and at
times the inspiriting effect of the trumpet. His gait was
uncouth and stiff, but no way embarrassed by affectation;
and the thorough-bred gentleman was uppermost in every
movement. He seized the moment of passion with the
greatest truth ; like a faithful clock, never striking before
the time : never anticipating or leading you to anticipate.
He was totally destitute of trick and artifice. He seemed
come upon the stage to do the poet's message simply, and
he did it with as genuine fidelity as the nuncios in Homer
deliver the errands of the gods. He let the passion or the
sentiment do its own work without prop or bolstering.
He would have scorned to mountebank it ; and betrayed
none of that cleverness which is the bane of serious acting.
For this reason, his lago was the only endurable one which
I remember to have seen. No si)ectator from his action
could divine more of his artifice than Othello was supposed
to do. His confessions in soliloquy alone put you in pos-
session of the mystery. There were no by-intimations to
156
On Some of the Old Actors
make the audience fancy their own discernment so much
greater than that of the Moor — who commonly stands hke
a great helpless mark set up for mine Ancient, and a
quantity of barren spectators, to shoot their bolts at. The
lago of Bensley did not go to work so grossly. There was
a triumphant tone about the character, natural to a general
consciousness of power; but none of that petty vanity
which chuckles and cannot contain itself upon any little
successful stroke of its knavery — as is common with your
small villains and green probationers in mischief. It did
not clap or crow before its time. It was not a man setting
his wits at a child, and winking all the while at other
children who are mightily pleased at being let into the
secret; but a consummate villain entrapping a noble
nature into toils, against which no discernment was avail-
able, where the manner was as fatho nless as the purpose
seemed dark, and without motive. The part of Malvolio,
in the Twelfth Night, was performed by Bensley, with a
richness and a dignity, of which (to judge from some recent
castings of that character) the very tradition must be worn
out from the stage. No manager in those days would have
dreamed of giving it to Mr. Baddeley, or Mr. Parsons ;
when Bensley was occasionally absent from the theatre,
John Kemble thought it no derogation to succeed to the
part. Malvolio is not essentially ludicrous. He becomes
comic but by accident. He is cold, austere, repelling ; but
dignified, consistent, and, for what appears, rather of an
over-stretched morality. Maria describes him as a sort of
Puritan ; and he might have worn his gold chain with
honour in one of our old round-head families, in the service
of a Lambert, or a Lady Fairfax. But his morality and his
manners are misplaced in Illyria. He is opposed to the
proper levities of the piece, and falls in the unequal contest.
Still his pride, or his gravity, (call it which you will) is
inherent, and native to the man, not mock or affected,
which latter only are the fit objects to excite laughter.
His quality is at the best unlovely, but neither buffoon nor
contemptible. His bearing is lofty a little above his
station, but probably not much above his deserts. We see
no reason why he should not have been brave, honourable,
accomplished. His careless committal of the ring to the
ground (which he was commissioned to restore to Cesario),
bespeaks a generosity of birth and feeling. His dialect on
157
The Essays of Elia
all occasions is that of a gentleman, and a man of educa-
tion. We must not confound him with the eternal old, low
steward of comedy. He is master of the household to a
great Princess ; a dignity probably conferred upon him for
other respects than age or length of service. Olivia, at the
first indication of his supposed madness, declares that she
" would not have him miscarry for half of her dowry."
Does this look as if the character was meant to appear
little or insignificant ? Once, indeed, she accuses him to
his face — of what ? — of being '* sick of sdf-love," — but with
a gentleness and considerateness which could not have
been, if she had not thought that this particular infirmity
shaded some virtues. His rebuke to the knight, and his
sottish revellers, is sensible and spirited ; and when we take
into consideration the unprotected condition of his
mistress, and the strict regard with which her state of real
or dissembled mourning would draw the eyes of the world
upon her house-affairs, Malvolio might feel the honour of
the family in some sort in his keeping ; as it appears not
that Olivia had any more brothers, or kinsmen, to look to
it — for Sir Toby had dropped all such nice respects at the
buttery hatch. That Malvolio was meant to be repre-
sented as possessing estimable qualities, the expression of
the Duke in his anxiety to have him reconciled, almost
infers. " Pursue him, and entreat him to a peace." Even
in his abused state of chains and darkness, a sort of great-
ness seems never to desert him. He argues highly and
well with the supposed Sir Topas, and philosophises gallantly
upon his straw.' There must have been some shadow of
worth about the man ; he must have been something more
than a mere vapour — a thing of straw, or Jack in office —
before Fabian and Maria could have ventured sending him
upon a courting-errand to Olivia. There was some con-
sonancy (as he would say) in the undertaking, or the jest
would have been too bold even for that house of misrule.
Bensley, accordingly, threw over the part an air of Spanish
loftiness. He looked, spake, and moved like an old Castilian.
He was starch, spruce, opinionated, but his superstructure
of pride seemed bottomed upon a sense of worth. There
' Clown. What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl ?
J\fal. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird.
Clown. What thinkest thou of his opinion?
Alal. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approre of his opinion.
i;8
On Some of the Old Actors
was something in it beyond the coxcomb. It was big and
swelling, but you could not be sure that it was hollow.
You might wish to see it taken do^Rn, but you felt that it
was upon an elevation. He was magnificent from the out-
set ; but when the decent sobrieties of the character began
to give way, and the poison of self-love, in his conceit of the
Countess's affection, gradually to work, you would have
thought that the hero of La Mancha in person stood before
you. How he went smiling to himself! with what ineffable
carelessness would he twirl his gold chain ! what a dream
it was I you were infected with the illusion, and did not
wish that it should be removed ! you had no room for
laughter ! if an unseasonable reflection of morality obtruded
itself, it was a deep sense of the pitiable infirmity of man's
nature, that can lay him open to such frenzies — but in
truth you rather admired than pitied the lunacy while it
lasted — you felt that an hour of such mistake was worth an
age with the eyes open. Who would not wish to live but
for a day in the conceit of such a lady's love as Olivia?
Why, the Duke would have given his principality but for a
quarter of a minute, sleeping or waking, to have been so
deluded. The man seemed to tread upon air, to taste
manna, to walk with his head in the clouds, to mate
Hyperion. O ! shake not the castles of his pride — endure
yet for a season bright moments of confidence — "stand
still ye watches of the element," that Malvolio may be still
in fancy fair Olivia's lord — but fate and retribution say no
— I hear the mischievous titter of Maria — the witty taunts
of Sir Toby — the still more insupportable triumph of the
foolish knight — the counterfeit Sir Topas is unmasked —
and "thus the whirligig of time," as the true clown hath it,
"brings in his revenges." I confess that I never saw the
catastrophe of this character, while Bensley played it, with-
out a kind of tragic interest. There was good foolery too.
Few now remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the stage
lost in him ! Lovegrove, who came nearest to the old
actors, revived the character some few seasons ago, and
made it sufficiently grotesque ; but Dodd was it, as it came
out of nature's hands. It might be said to remain in puris
naturalibus. In expressing slowness of apprehension this
actor surpassed all others. You could see the first dawn
of an idea stealing slowly over his countenance, climbing
up by little and little, with a painful process, till it cleared
159
The Essays of Elia
up at last to the fulness of a twilight conception — its highest
meridian. He seemed to keep back his intellect, as some
have had the power to retard their pulsation. The balloon
takes less time in filling, than it took to cover the expansion
of his broad moony face over all its quarters with expression.
A glimmer of understanding would appear in a corner of his
eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. A part of his fore-
head would catch a little intelligence, and be a long time in
communicating it to the remainder.
I am ill at dates, but I think it is now better than five
and twenty years ago that walking in the gardens of Gray's
Inn — they were then far finer than they are now — the
accursed Verulam Buildings had not encroached upon all
the east side of them, cutting out delicate green crankles,
and shouldering away one of two of the stately alcoves of
the terrace — the survivor stands gaping and relationless as
if it remembered its brother — they are still the best gardens
of any of the Inns of Court, my beloved Temple not forgotten
— have the gravest character, their aspect being altogether
reverend and law breathing — Bacon has left the impress of
his foot upon their gravel walks taking my afternoon
solace on a summer day upon the aforesaid terrace, a
comely, sad personage came towards me, whom, from his
grave air and deportment, I judged to be one of the old
Benchers of the Inn. He had a serious thoughtful forehead,
and seemed to be in meditations of mortality. As I have
an instinctive awe of old Benchers, I was passing him with
that sort of subindicative token of respect which one is apt
to demonstrate towards a venerable stranger, and which
rather denotes an inclination to greet him, than any positive
motion of the body to that effect — a species of humility and
will-worship which I observe, nine times out of ten, rather
puzzles than pleases the person it is offered to — when the
face turning full upon me strangely identified itself with that
of Dodd. Upon close inspection I was not mistaken. But
could this sad thoughtful countenance be the same vacant
face of folly which I had hailed so often under circumstances
of gaiety; which I had never seen without a smile, or
recognised but as the usher of mirth ; that looked out so
formally flat in Foppington, so frothily pert in Tattle, so
impotently busy in Backbite ; so blankly divested of all
meaning, or resolutely expressive of none, in Acres, in
Fribble, and a thousand agreeable impertinences? Was
i6o
On Some of the Old Actors
this the face — full of thought and carefulness — that had so
often divested itself at will of every trace of either to give
me diversion, to clear my cloudy face for two or three hours
at least of its furrows ? Was this the face — manly, sober,
intelligent, — which I had so often despised, made mocks
at, made merry with? The remembrance of the freedoms
which I had taken with it came upon me with a reproach of
insult. I could have asked it pardon. I thought it looked
upon me with a sense of injury. There is something strange
as well as sad in seeing actors — your pleasant fellows par-
ticularly— subjected to and suffering the common lot — their
fortunes, their casualties, their deaths, seem to belong to the
scene, their actions to be amenable to poetic justice only.
We can hardly connect them with more awful responsibilities.
The death of this fine actor took place shortly after this
meeting. He had quitted the stage some months; and, as
I learned afterwards, had been in the habit of resorting
daily to these gardens almost to the day of his decease. In
these serious walks probably he was divesting himself of
many scenic and some real vanities — weaning himself from
the frivolities of the lesser and the greater theatre — doing
gentle penance for a life of no very reprehensible fooleries,
— taking off by degrees the buffoon mask which he might
feel he had worn too long — and rehearsing for a more solemn
cast of part. Dying he "put on the weeds of Dominic."'
If few can remember Dodd, many yet living will not
easily forget the pleasant creature, who in those days
enacted the part of the Clown to Dodd's Sir Andrew. —
Richard, or rather Dicky Suett — for so in his life-time he
delighted to be called, and time hath ratified the appella-
tion— lieth buried on the north side of the cemetery of
Holy Paul, to whose service his nonage and tender years
were dedicated. There are who do yet remember him at
that period — his pipe clear and harmonious. He would
' Dodd was a man of readin£T, and left at bis death a choice collection
of old English literature. I should judge him to have been a man of
wit. I know one instance of an impromptu which no length of study
could have bettered. My merry friend, Jem White, had seen him one
evening in Aguecheek, and recognising Dodd the next day in Fleet
Street, wns irresistibly impelled to take off his hat and salute him as the
identical Knight of the preceding evening with a "Save you. Sir
Aridrew" Dodd, not at all disconcerted at this unusual address from
a stranger, with a courteous half-rebuking wave of the band, put him
off with an "Away, Fool."
L l6l
The Essays of Elia
often speak of his chorister days, when he was "cherub
Dicky."
What clipped his wings, or made it expedient that he
should exchange the holy for the profane state ; whether
he had lost his good voice (his best recommendation to
that office), like Sir John, "with hallooing and singing of
anthems ;" or whether he was adjudged to lack something,
even in those early years, of the gravity indispensable to
an occupation which professeth to "commerce with the
skies" — I could never rightly learn ; but we find him, after
the probation of a twelvemonth or so, reverting to a secular
condition, and become one of us.
I think he was not altogether of that timber, out of
which cathedral seats and sounding boards are hewed.
But if a glad heart — kind and therefore glad — be any part
of sanctity, then might the robe of Motley, with which he
invested himself with so much humility after his depriva-
tion, and which he wore so long with so much blameless
satisfaction to himself and to the public, be accepted for a
surplice — his white stole, and albe.
The first fruits of his secularisation was an engagement
apon the boards of Old Drury, at which theatre he com-
menced, as I have been told, with adopting the manner of
Parsons in old men's characters. At the period in which
most of us knew him, he was no more an imitator than he
was in any true sense himself imitable.
He was the Robin Good-Fellow of the stage. He came
in to trouble all things with a welcome perplexity, himself
no whit troubled for the matter. He was known, like
Puck, by his note — Ha I Ha ! Ha I — sometimes deepen-
ing to Hoi Hoi Hoi with an irresistible accession, derived
perhaps remotely from his ecclesiastical education, foreign
to his prototype of,— 6> La I Thousands of hearts yet
respond to the chuckling O La I of Dicky Suett, brought
back to their remembrance by the faithful transcript of
his friend Mathews's mimicry. The "force of nature could
no farther go." He drolled upon the stock of these two
syllables richer than the cuckoo.
Care, that troubles all the world, was forgotten in his
composition. Had he had but two grains (nay, half a
grain) of it, he could never have supported himself upon
those two spider's strings, which served him (in the latter
part of his unmixed existence) as legs. A doubt or a
162
On Some of the Old Actors
scruple must have made him totter, a sigh have puffed him
down ; the weight of a frown had staggered him, a wrinkle
made him lose his balance. But on he went, scrambling
upon those airy stilts of his, with Robin Good-Fellow,
"thorough brake, thorough briar," reckless of a scratched
face or a torn doublet.
Shakspeare foresaw him, when he framed his fools and
jesters. They have all the true Suett stamp, a loose and
shambling gait, a slippery tongue, this last the ready mid-
wife to a without-pain-delivered jest; in words, light as air,
venting truths deep as the centre; with idlest rhymes
tagging conceit when busiest, singing with Lear in the
tempest, or Sir Toby at the buttery-hatch.
Jack Bannister and he had the fortune to be more of
personal favourites with the town than any actors before or
after. The difference, I take it, was this : — Jack was more
beloved for his sweet, good-natured, moral pretensions.
Dicky was more liked for his sweet, good-natured, no
pretensions at all. Your whole conscience stirred with
Bannister's performance of Walter in the Children in the
Wood — but Dicky seemed like a thing, as Shakspeare says
of Love, too young to know what conscience is. He puts
us into Vesta's days. Evil fled before him — not as from
Jack, as from an antagonist, — but because it could not
touch him, any more than a cannon-ball a fly. He was
delivered from the burthen of that death; and, when Death
came himself, not in metaphor, to fetch Dicky, it is recorded
of him by Robert Palmer, who kindly watched his exit, that
he received the last stroke, neither varying his accustomed
tranquillity, nor tune, with the simple exclamation, worthy
to have been recorded in his epitaph — O La I O La !
Bobby !
The elder Palmer (of stage-treading celebrity) commonly
played Sir Toby in those days; but there is a solidity of
wit in the jests of that half-Falstaff which he did not quite
fill out. He was as much too showy as Moody (who some-
times took the part) was dry and sottish. In sock or
buskin there was an air of swaggering gentility about Jack
Palmer. He was a gefitkman with a slight infusion of the
footman. His brother Bob (of recenter memory) who was
his shadow in every thing while he lived, and dwindled into
less than a shadow afterwards — was a gentleman with a little
stronger infusion of the latter ingredient ; that was all. It
163
The Essays of Elia
is amazing how a little of the more or less makes a difference
in these things. When you saw Bobby in the Duke's
Servant/ you said, what a pity such a pretty fellow was
only a servant. When you saw Jack figuring in Captain
Absolute, you thought you could trace his promotion to
some lady of quality who fancied the handsome follow in
his topknot, and had bought him a commission. Therefore
Jack in Dick Amulet was insuperable.
Jack had two voices, — both plausible, hypocritical, and
insinuating; but his secondary or supplemental voice still
more decisively histrionic than his common one. It was re-
served for the spectator ; and the dramatis personze were
supposed to know nothing at all about it. The lies of
young Wilding, and the sentiments in Joseph Surface, were
thus marked out in a sort of italics to the audience. This
secret correspondence with the company before the curtain
(which is the bane and death of tragedy) has an extremely
happy effect in some kinds of comedy, in the more highly
artificial comedy of Congreve or of Sheridan especially,
where the absolute sense of reality (so indispensable to
scenes of interest) is not required, or would rather interfere
to diminish your pleasure. The fact is, you do not believe
in such characters as Surface — the villain of artificial comedy
— even while you read or see them. If you did, they would
shock and not divert you. When Ben, in Love for Love,
returns from sea, the following exquisite dialogue occurs at
his first meeting with his father —
Sir Sampson. Thou hast been many a weary league, Ben, since I
saw thee.
Ben. Ey, ey, been ! Been far enough, an that be all. — Well, father
and how do all at home ? how does brother Dick, and brother Val?
Sir Sampson, Dick I body o' me, Dick has been dead these two years.
I writ you word when you were at Leghorn.
Ben. Mess, that's true ; Marry, I had forgot. Dick's dead, as you
say — Well, and how ? — I have a many questions to ask you —
Here is an instance of insensibility which in real life
would be revolting, or rather in real life could not have co-
existed with the warm-hearted temperament of the character.
But when you read it in the spirit with which such playful
selections and specious combinations rather than strict
metaphrases of nature should be taken, or when you saw
Bannister play it, it neither did, nor does wound the moral
' High Life Below Stairs.
164
Artificial Comedy of Last Century-
sense at all. For what is Ben — the pleasant sailor which
Bannister gives us — but a piece of satire — a creation of
Congreve's fancy — a dreamy combination of all the accidents
of a sailor's character — his contempt of money — his credulity
to women — with that necessary estrangement from home
which it is just within the verge of credibility to suppose
might produce such an hallucination as is here described.
We never think the worse of Ben for it, or feel it as a stain
upon his character. But when an actor comes, and instead
of the delightful phantom — the creature dear to half-belief —
which Bannister exhibited — displays before our eyes a
downright concretion of a Wapping sailor — a jolly warm-
hearted Jack Tar — and nothing else — when instead of
investing it with a delicious confusedness of the bead, and a
veering undirected goodness of purpose — he gives to it a
downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness
of its actions ; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the
character with a pretence as if it stood upon nothing else,
and was to be judged by them alone — we feel the discord of
the thing ; the scene is disturbed ; a real man has got in
among the dramatis personse, and puts them out. We want
the sailor turned out. We feel that his true place is not
behind the curtain but in the first or second gallery.
ON THE ARTIFICIAL COMEDY OF THE
LAST CENTURY.
The artificial Comedy, or Comedy of manners, is quite
extinct on our stage. Congreve and Farquhar show their
heads once in seven years only, to be exploded and put
down instantly. The times cannot bear them. Is it for a
few wild speeches, an occasional license of dialogue ? I think
not altogether. The business of their dramatic characters
will not stand the moral test. We screw every thing up to
that. Idle gallantry in a fiction, a dream, the passing
pageant of an evening, startles us in the same way as the
alarming indications of profligacy in a son or ward in real
life should startle a parent or guardian. We have no such
middle emotions as dramatic interests left. We see a stage
libertine playing his loose pranks of two hours' duration,
and of no after consequence, with the severe eyes vvliich
165
The Essays of Elia
inspect real vices with their bearings upon two worlds. We
are spectators to a plot or intrigue (not reducible in life to
the point of strict morality) and take it all for truth. We
substitute a real for a dramatic person, and judge him
accordingly. We try him in our courts, from which there is
no appeal to the dramatis personce^ his peers. We have been
spoiled with — not sentimental comedy — but a tyrant far
more pernicious to our pleasures which has succeeded to it,
the exclusive and all devouring drama of common life ;
where the moral point is every thing ; where, instead of the
fictitious half-believed personages of the stage (the phantoms
of old comedy) we recognise ourselves, our brothers, aunts,
kinsfolk, allies, patrons, enemies, — the same as in life, —
with an interest in what is going on so hearty and substan-
tial, that we cannot afford our moral judgment, in its deepest
and most vital results, to compromise or slumber for a
moment. What is there transacting, by no modification is
made to affect us in any other manner than the same events
or characters would do in our relationships of life. We
carry our fire-side concerns to the theatre with us. We do
not go thither, like our ancestors, to escape from the pressure
of reality, so much as to confirm our experience of it; to
make assurance double, and take a bond of fate. We must
live our toilsome lives twice over, as it was the mournful
privilege of Ulysses to descend twice to the shades. All
that neutral ground of character, which stood between vice
and virtue ; or which in fact was indifferent to neither,
where neither properly was called in question ; that happy
breathing-place from the burthen of a perpetual moral
questioning — the sanctuary and quiet Alsatia of hunted
casuistry — is broken up and disfranchised, as injurious to
the interests of society. The privileges of the place are
taken away by law. We dare not dally with images, or
names, of wrong. We bark like foolish dogs at shadows.
We dread infection from the scenic representation of dis-
order ; and fear a painted pustule. In our anxiety that our
morality should not take cold, we wrap it up in a great
blanket surtout of precaution against the breeze and sunshine.
I confess for myself that (with no great delinquencies to
answer for) I am glad for a season to take an airing beyond
the diocese of the strict conscience, — not to live always in
the precincts of the law-courts — but now and then, for a
dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling
i66
Artificial Comedy of Last Century
restrictions — to get into recesses, whither the hunter cannot
follow me —
Secret shades
Of woody Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove —
I come back to my cage and my restraint the fresher and
more healthy for it. I wear my shackles more contentedly
for having respired the breath of an imaginary freedom. I
do not know how it is with others, but I feel the better
always for the perusal of one of Congreve's — nay, why
should I not add even of Wycherley's — comedies. I am
the gayer at least for it ; and I could never connect those
sports of a witty fancy in any shape with any result to be
drawn from them to imitation in real life. They are a
world of themselves almost as much as fairy land. Take
one of their characters, male or female (with few exceptions
they are alike), and place it in a modern play, and my
virtuous indignation shall rise against the profligate wretch
as warmly as the Catos of the pit could desire ; because in
a modern play I am to judge of the right and the wrong. The
standard oi police is the measure o{ political justice. The
atmosphere will blight it, it cannot live here. It has got
into a moral world, where it has no business, from which it
must needs fall headlong ; as dizzy, and incapable of making
a stand, as a Swedenborgian bad spirit that has wandered
unawares into the sphere of one of his Good Men or Angels.
But in its own world do we feel the creature is so very bad ?
— The Famalls and the Mirabels, the Dorimants and the
Lady Touchwoods, in their own sphere, do not offend my
moral sense ; in fact they do not appeal to it at all. They
seem engaged in their proper element. They break through
no laws, or conscious restraints. They know of none.
They have got out of Christendom into the land — what shall
I call it? — of cuckoldry — the Utopia of gallantry, where
pleasure is duty, and the manners perfect freedom. It is
altogether a speculative scene of things, which has no
reference whatever to the world that is. No good person
can be justly offended as a spectator, because no good person
suffers on the stage. Judged morally, every character in
these plays — the few exceptions only are mistakes — is alike
essentially vain and worthless. The great art of Congreve
is especially shown in this, that he has entirely excluded
from his scenes, — some little generosities on the part of
167
The Essays of Elia
Angelica perhaps excepted, — not only any thing like a
faultless character, but any pretensions to goodness or good
feelings whatsoever. Whether he did this designedly, or
instinctively, the effect is as happy, as the design (if design)
was bold. I used to wonder at the strange power which his
Way of the World in particular possesses of interesting you
all along in the pursuits of characters, for whom you abso-
lutely care nothing — for you neither hate nor love his
personages — and I think it is owing to this very indifference
for any, that you endure the whole. He has spread a
privation of moral light, I will call it, rather than by the
ugly name of palpable darkness, over his creations ; and his
shadows flit before you without distinction or preference.
Had he introduced a good character, a single gush of moral
feeling, a revulsion of the judgment to actual life and actual
duties, the impertinent Goshen would have only lighted to
the discovery of deformities, which now are none, because we
think them none.
Translated into real life, the characters of his, and his
friend Wycherley's dramas, are profligates and strumpets,
— the business of their brief existence, the undivided
pursuit of lawless gallantry. No other spring of action, or
possible motive of conduct, is recognised; principles
which, universally acted upon, must reduce this frame of
things to a chaos. But we do them wrong in so translating
them. No such effects are produced in tJieir world.
When we are among them, we are amongst a chaotic people.
We are not to judge them by our usages. No reverend
institutions are insulted by their proceedings, — for they
have none among them. No peace of families is violated,
— for no family ties exist among them. No purity of the
marriage bed is stained, — for none is supposed to have a
being. No deep affections are disquieted, — no holy
wedlock bands are snapped asunder, — for affection's depth
and wedded faith are not of the growth of that soil.
There is neither right nor wrong, — gratitude or its opposite,
— claim or duty, — paternity or sonship. Of what conse-
quence is it to virtue, or how is she at all concerned about
it, whether Sir Simon, or Dapperwit, steal away Miss
Martha ; or who is the father of Lord Froth's, or Sir Paul
Pliant's children.
The whole is a passing pageant, where we should sit as
unconcerned at the issues, for life or death, as at a battle
i68
Artificial Comedy of Last Century
of the frogs and mice. But, like Don Quixote, we take
part against the puppets, and quite as impertinently. We
dare not contemplate an Atlantis, a scheme, out of which
our coxcombical moral sense is for a little transitory ease
excluded. We have not the courage to imagine a state of
things for which there is neither reward nor punishment.
We cling to the painful necessities of shame and blame.
We would indict our very dreams.
Amidst the mortifying circumstances attendant upon
growing old, it is something to have seen the School for
Scandal in its glory. This comedy grew out of Congreve
and Wycherley, but gathered some allays of the sentimental
comedy which followed theirs. It is impossible that it
should be now acted, though 't continues, at long intervals,
to be announced in the bills. Its hero, when Palmer
played it at least, was Joseph Surface. When I remember
the gay boldness, the graceful solemn plausibility, the
measured step, the insinuating voice — to express it in a
word — the downright acted villany of the part, so different
from the pressure of conscious actual wickedness, — the
hypocritical assumption of hypocrisy, — which made Jack so
deservedly a favourite in that character, I must needs con-
clude the present generation of play-goers more virtuous
than myself, or more dense. I freely confess that he
divided the palm with me with his better brother ; that, in
fact, I liked him quite as well. Not but there are passages,
— like that, for instance, where Joseph is made to refuse a
pittance to a poor relation — incongruities which Sheridan
was forced upon by the attempt to join the artificial with
the sentimental comedy, either of which must destroy the
other — but orer these obstructions Jack's manner floated
him so lightly, that a refusal from him no more shocked
you, than the easy compliance of Charles gave you in
reality any pleasure ; you got over the paltry question as
quickly as you could, to get back into the regions of pure
comedy, where no cold moral reigns. The highly artificial
manner of Palmer in this character counteracted every
disagreeable impression which you might have received
from the contrast, supposing them real, between the two
brothers. You did not believe in Joseph with the same
faith with which you believed in Charles. The latter was a
pleasant reality, the former a no less pleasant poetical foil to
it. The comedy, I have said, is incongruous ; a mixture of
169
The Essays of Elia
'Congreve with sentimental incompatibilities ; the gaiety
upon the whole is buoyant ; but it required the consummate
art of Palmer to reconcile the discordant elements.
A player with Jack's talents, if we had one now, would
not dare to do the part in the same manner. He would
instinctively avoid every turn which might tend to unrealise,
and so to make the character fascinating. He must take
his cue from his spectators, who would expect a bad man
and a good man as rigidly opposed to each other as the
death-beds of those geniuses are contrasted in the prints,
which lam sorry to say have disappeared from the windows
of my old friend Carrington Bowles, of St. Paul's Church-
yard memory — (an exhibition as venerable as the adjacent
cathedral, and almost coeval) of the bad and good man at
the hour of death ; where the ghastly apprehensions of the
former, — and truly the grim phantom with his reality of a
toasting fork is not to be despised, — so finely contrast with
the meek complacent kissing of the rod, — taking it in like
honey and butter, — with which the latter submits to the
scythe of the gentler bleeder, Time, who wields his lancet
with the apprehensive finger of a popular young ladies'
surgeon. What flesh, like loving grass, would not covet
to meet half-way the stroke of such a delicate mower? —
John Palmer was twice an actor in this exquisite part. He
was playing to you all the while that he was playing upon
Sir Peter and his lady. You had the first intimation of a
sentiment before it was on his lips. His altered voice was
meant to you, and you were to suppose that his fictitious
co-flutterers on the stage peiceived nothing at all of it.
What was it to you if that half-reality, the husband, was
over reached by the puppetry — or the thin thing (Lady
Teazle's reputation) was persuaded it was dying of a
plethory? The fortunes of Othello and Desdemona were
not concerned in it. Poor Jack has passed from the stage
in good time, that he did not live to this our age of serious-
ness. The pleasant old Teazle King, too, is gone in good
time. His manner would scarce have past current in our
day. We must love or hate — acquit or condemn — censure
or pity — exert our detestable coxcombry of moral judgment
upon everything. Joseph Surface, to go down now, must
be a downright revolting villain — no compromise — his first
appearance must shock and give horror — his specious
plausibilities, which the pleasurable faculties of our fathers
I70
Artificial Comedy of Last Century
welcomed with such hearty greetings, knowing that no harm
(dramatic harm even) could come, or was meant to come
of them, must inspire a cold and killing aversion. Charles
(the real canting person of the scene — for the hypocrisy of
Joseph has its ulterior legitimate ends, but his l)rother's
professions of a good heart centre in downright self-satisfac-
tion) must be loved, and Joseph hated. To balance one
disagreeable reality with another. Sir Peter Teazle must be
no longer the comic idea of a fretful old bachelor bride-
groom, whose teasings (while King acted it) were evidently
as much played oflf at you, as they were meant to concern
any body on the stage, — he must be a real person, capable
in law of sustaining an injury — a person towards whom
duties are to be acknowledged — the genuine crim-con
antagonist of the villanous seducer Joseph. To realise him
more, his sufferings under his unfortunate match must have
the downright pungency of life — must (or should) make
you not mirthful but uncomfortable, just as the same pre-
dicament would move you in a neighbour or old friend.
The delicious scenes which give the play its name and zest,
must affect you in the same serious manner as if you heard
the reputation of a dear female friend attacked in your real
presence. Crabtree, and Sir Benjamin — those poor snakes
that live but in the sunshine of your mirth — must be
ripened by this hot-bed process of realisation into asps or
amphisbaenas ; and Mrs. Candour — O ! frightful ! become
a hooded serpent. Oh who that remembers Parsons and
Dodd — the wasp and butterfly of the School for Scandal —
in those two characters ; and charming natural Miss Pope,
the perfect gentlewoman as distinguished from the fine
lady of comedy, in this latter part— would forego the true
scenic delight — the escape from life — the oblivion of con-
sequences— the holiday barring out of the pedant Reflection
— those Saturnalia of two or three brief hours, well won
from the world — to sit instead at one of our modern plays
— to have his coward conscience (that forsooth must not
be left for a moment) stimulated with perpetual appeals —
dulled rather, and blunted, as a faculty without repose
must be — and his moral vanity pampered with images of
notional justice, notional beneficences, lives saved without
the spectators' risk, and fortunes given away that cost the
author nothing?
No piece was, perhaps, ever so completely cast in all its
171
The Essays of Elia
parts as this manager's comedy. Miss Farren had succeeded
to Mrs. Abingdon in Lady Teazle ; and Smith, the original
Charles, had retired when I first saw it. The rest of the
characters, with very slight exceptions, remained. I re-
member it was then the fashion to cry down John
Kemble, who took the part of Charles after Smith; but I
thought, very unjustly. Smith, I fancy, was more airy, and
took the eye with a certain gaiety of person. He brought
with him no sombre recollections of tragedy He had not
to expiate the fault of having pleased beforehand in lofty
declamation. He had no sins of Hamlet or of Richard to
atone for. His failure in these parts was a passport to
success in one of so opposite a tendency. But, as far as I
could judge, the weighty sense of Kemble made up for
more personal incapacity than he had to answer for. His
harshest tones in this part came steeped and dulcified in
good humour. He made his defects a grace. His exact
declamatory manner, as he managed it, only served to
convey the points of his dialogue with more precision. It
seemed to head the shafts to carry them deeper. Not one
of his sparkling sentences was lost. I remember minutely
how he delivered each in succession, and cannot by any
effort imagine how any of them could be altered for the
better. No man could deliver brilliant dialogue — the
dialogue of Congreve or Wycherley — because none under-
stood it — half so well as John Kemble. His Valentine, in
Love for Love, was, to my recollection, faultless. He
flagged sometimes in the intervals of tragic passion. He
would slumber over the level parts of an heroic character.
His Macbeth has been known to nod. But he always
seemed to me to be particularly alive to pointed and witty
dialogue. The relaxing levities of tragedy have not been
touched by any since him — the playful court-bred spirit in
which he condescended to the players in Hamlet — the
sportive relief which he threw into the darker shades oi
Richard — disappeared with him. He had his sluggish moods,
his torpors — but they were the halting-stones and resting-
places of his tragedy — poHtic savings, and fetches of the breath
— husbandry of the lungs, where nature pointed him to be an
economist — rather, I think, than errors of the judgment.
They were, at worst, less painful than the eternal tormenting
unappeasable vigilance, the " lidless dragon eyes," of present
fashionable tragedy.
172
On the Acting of Munden
ON THE ACTING OF MUNDEN
Not many nights ago I had come home from seeing this
extraordinary performer in Cockletop ; and when I retired
to my pillow, his whimsical image still stuck by me, in a
manner as to threaten sleep. In vain I tried to divest
myself of it, by conjuring up the most opposite associations.
I resolved to be serious. I raised up the gravest topics of
life ; private misery, public calamity. All would not do.
There the antic sate
Mocking our state —
his queer visnomy — his bewildering costume — all the strange
things which he had raked together — his serpentine rod,
swagging about in his pocket — Cleopatra's tear, and the rest
of his relics — O'Keefe's wild farce, and his wilder commen-
tary— till the passion of laughter, like grief in excess, relieved
itself by its own weight, inviting the sleep which in the first
instance it had driven away.
But I was not to escape so easily. No sooner did I fall
into slumbers, than the same image, only more perplexing,
assailed me in the shape of dreams. Not one Munden, but
five hundred, were dancing before me, like the faces which,
whether you will or no, come when you have been taking
opium — all the strange combinations, which this strangest
of all strange mortals ever shot his proper countenance into,
from the day he came commissioned to dry up the tears of
the town for the loss of the now almost forgotten Edwin.
O for the power of the pencil to have fixed them when I
awoke ! A season or two since there was exhibited a
Hogarth gallery. I do not see why there should not be a
Munden gallery. In richness and variety the latter would
not fall far short of the former.
There is one face of Farley, one face of Knight, one (but
what a one it is !) of Liston ; but Munden has none that
you can properly pin down, and call his. When you think
he has exhausted his battery of looks, in unaccountable
warfare with your gravity, suddenly he sprouts out an
entirely new set of of features, like Hydra. He is not one,
but legion. Not so much a comedian, as a company. If
his name could be multiplied like his countenance, it might
173
The Essays of Elia
fill a play-bill. He, and he alone, literally makes faces :
applied to any other person, the phrase is a mere figure,
denoting certain modifications of the human countenance.
Out of some invisible wardrobe he dips for faces, as his
friend Suett used for wigs, and fetches them out as easily.
I should not be surprised to see him some day put out the
head of a river horse ; or come forth a pewitt, or lapwing,
some feathered metamorphosis.
I have seen this gifted actor in Sir Christopher Curry — in
Old Dornton — diffuse a glow of sentiment which has made
the pulse of a crowded theatre beat like that of one man ;
when he has come in aid of the pulpit, doing good to the
moral heart of a people. I have seen some faint approaches
to this sort of excellence in other players. But in the grand
grotesque of farce, Munden stands out as single and unac-
companied as Hogarth. Hogarth, strange to tell, had no
followers. The school of Munden began, and must end
with himself.
Can any man wonder, like him ? can any man see ghosts^
like him ? ox fight with his own shadow — "sessa" — as he
does in that strangely-neglected thing, the Cobbler of Preston
— where his alternations from the Cobbler to the Magnifico,
and from the Magnifico to the Cobbler, keep the brain of
the spectator in as wild a ferment, as if some Arabian Night
were being acted before him. Who like him can throw, or
ever attempted to throw, a preternatural interest over the
commonest daily-life objects. A table, or a joint stool, in
his conception, rises into a dignity equivalent to Cassiopeia's
chair. It is invested with constellatory importance. You
could not speak of it with more deference, if it were
mounted into the firmament. A beggar in the hands of
Michael Angelo, says Fuseli, rose the Patriarch of Poverty.
So the gusto of Munden antiquates and ennobles what it
touches. His pots and his ladles are as grand and primal
as the seething-pots and hooks seen in old prophetic vision.
A tub of butter, contemplated by him, amounts to a
Platonic idea. He understands a leg of mutton in its
quiddity. He stands wondering, amid the common-place
materials of life, like primeval man with the sun and stars
about him.
174
LAST ESSAYS OF ELIA
PREFACE
BV A FRIEND OF THE LATE ELIA
This poor gentleman, who for some months past had been
in a declining way, hath at length paid his final tribute to
nature.
To say truth, it is time he were gone. The humour of
the thing, if there ever was much in it, was pretty well
exhausted ; and a two years' and a half existence has been
a tolerable duration for a phantom.
I am now at liberty to confess, that much which I have
heard objected to my late friend's writings was well-founded-
Crude they are, I grant you — a sort of unlicked, incondite
things — villainously pranked in an affected array of antique
modes and phrases. They had not been his., if they had
been other than such ; and better it is, that a writer should
be natural in a self-pleasing quaintness, than to affect a
naturalness (so called) that should be strange to him.
Egotistical they have been pronounced by some who did
not know, that what he tells us, as of himself, was often
true only (historically) of another ; as in a former Essay (to
save many instances) — where under the first person (his
favourite figure) he shadows forth the forlorn estate of a
country-boy placed at a London school, far from his friends
and connections — in direct opposition to his own early
history. If it be egotism to imply and twine with his own
identity the griefs and affections of another — making him-
self many, or reducing many unto himself — then is the
skilful novelist, who all along brings in his hero or heroine,
speaking of themselves, the greatest egotist of all; who yet
has never, therefore, been accused of that narrowness.
And how shall the intenser dramatist escape being faulty,
who, doubtless, under cover of passion uttered by another,
oftentimes gives blameless vent to his most inward feelings,
and expresses his own story modestly.
My late friend was in many respects a singular character.
These who did not like him, hated him; and some, who
once liked him, afterwards became his bitterest haters.
The truth is, he gave himself too little concern what he
uttered, and in whose presence. He observed neither time
M 177
The Essays of Elia
nor place, and would e'en out with what came uppermost.
With the severe religionist he would pass for a freethinker ;
while the other faction set him down for a bigot, or per-
suaded themselves that he belied his sentiments. Few
understood him ; and I am not certain that at all times he
quite understood himself. He too much affected that
dangerous figure — irony. He sowed doubtful speeches,
and reaped plain, unequivocal hatred. — He would interrupt
the gravest discussion with some light jest ; and yet, perhaps,
not quite irrelevant in ears that could understand it. Your
long and much talkers hated him. The informal habit of
his mind, joined to an inveterate impediment of speech,
forbade him to be an orator ; and he seemed determined
that no one else should play that part when he was present.
He was petit and ordinary in his person and appearance, I
have seen him sometimes in what is called good company,
but where he has been a stranger, sit silent, and be suspected
for an odd fellow ; till some unlucky occasion provoking it,
he would stutter out some senseless pun (not altogether
senseless perhaps, if rightly taken), which has stamped his
character for the evening. It was hit or miss with him ;
but nine times out of ten, he contrived by this device to
send away a whole company his enemies. His conceptions
rose kindlier than his utterance, and his happiest impromptus
had the appearance of effort. He has been accused of
trying to be witty, when in truth he was but struggling to
give his poor thoughts articulation. He chose his com-
panions for some individuality of character which they
manifested. — Hence, not many persons of science, and few
professed literati, were of his councils. They were, for the
most part, persons of an uncertain fortune ; and, as to such
people commonly nothing is more obnoxious than a gentle-
man of settled (though moderate) income, he passed with
most of them for a great miser. To my knowledge this was
a mistake. His intimados, to confess a truth, were in the
world's eye a ragged regiment. He found them floating on
the surface of society ; and the colour, or something else in
the weed pleased him. The burrs stuck to him — but they
were good and loving burrs for all that. He never greatly
cared for the society of what are called good people. If
any of these were scandalised (and offences were sure to
arise), he could not help it. When he has been remon-
strated with for not making more concessions to the feelings
178
Preface
of good people, he would retort by asking, what one point
did these good people ever concede to him? He was
temperate in his meals and diversions, but always kept a
little on this side of abstemiousness. Only in the use of
the Indian weed he might be thought a little excessive.
He took it, he would say, as a solvent of speech. Marry
— as the friendly vapour ascended, how his prattle would
curl up sometimes with it ! the ligaments which tongue-tied
him, were loosened, and the stammerer proceeded a
statist !
I do not know whether I ought to bemoan or rejoice that
my old friend is departed. His jests were beginning to
grow obsolete, and his stories to be found out. He felt the
approaches of age; and while he pretended to cling to life,
you saw how slender were the ties left to bind him.
Discoursing with him latterly on this subject, he expressed
himself with a pettishness, which I thought unworthy of him.
In our walks about his suburban retreat (as he called it) at
Shacklewell, some children belonging to a school of industry
had met us, and bowed and curtseyed, as he thought, in an
especial manner to him. "They take me for a visiting
governor," he muttered earnestly. He had a horror, which
he carried to a foible, of looking like anything important
and parochial. He thought that he approached nearer to
that stamp daily. He had a general aversion from being
treated Uke a grave or respectable character, and kept a
wary eye upon the advances of age that should so entitle
him. He herded always, while it was possible, with people
younger than himself. He did not conform to the march
of time, but was dragged along in the procession. His
manners lagged behind his years. He was too much of the
boy-man. The toga virilis never sate gracefully on his
shoulders. The impressions of infancy had burnt into him,
and he resented the impertinence of manhood. These were
weaknesses ; but such as they were, they are a key to
explicate some of his writings.
179
The Essays of Elia
BLAKESMOOR^ IN TT SHIRE.
I DO not know a pleasure more affecting than to range at
will over the deserted apartments of some fine old family
mansion. The traces of extinct grandeur admit of a better
passion than envy : and contemplations on the great and.
good, whom we fancy in succession to have been its inhabit-
ants, weave for us illusions, incompatible with the bustle of
modern occupancy, and vanities of foolish present aristo-
cracy. The same difference of feeling, I think, attends us
between entering an empty and a crowded church. In the
latter it is chance but some present human frailty — an act
of inattention on the part of some of the auditory — or a
trait of affectation, or worse, vain-glory, on that of the
preacher — puts us by our best thoughts, disharmonising
the place and the occasion. But wouldst thou know the
beauty of holiness ? — go alone on some week-day, borrow-
ing the keys of good Master Sexton, traverse the cool
aisles of some country church : think of the piety
that has kneeled there — the congregations, old and young,
that have found consolation there — the meek pastor — the
docile parishioner. With no disturbing emotions, no cross
conflicting comparisons, drink in the tranquillity of the
place, till thou thyself become as fixed and motionless as
the marble effigies that kneel and weep around thee.
Journeying northward lately, I could not resist going some
few miles out of my road to look upon the remains of an
old great house with which I had been impressed in this
way in infancy. I was apprised that the owner of it had
lately pulled it down ; still 1 had a vague notion that it
could not all have perished, that so much solidity with
magnificence could not have been crushed all at once into
the mere dust and rubbish which I found it.
The work of ruin had proceeded with a swift hand indeed,
and the demolition of a few weeks had reduced it to — an
antiquity.
I was astonished at the indistinction of everything.
Where had stood the great gates? What bounded the
courtyard ? Whereabout did the out-houses commence ? a
[' Blakesware in Hertfordshire.]
l8o
Blakesmoor in H shire
few bricks only lay as representatives of that which was so
stately and so spacious.
Death does not shrink up his human victim at this rate.
The burnt ashes of a man weigh more in their proportion.
Had I seen these brick-and-mortar knaves at their process
of destruction, at the plucking of every pannel I should have
felt the varlets at my heart. I should have cried out
to them to spare a plank at least out of the cheerful
store-room, in whose hot window-seat I used to sit and
read Cowley, with the grass-plot before, and the hum and
flappings of that one solitary wasp that ever haunted it
about me — it is in mine ears now, as oft as summer returns;
or a pannel of the yellow room.
Why, every plank and pannel of that house for me had
magic in it. The tapestried bed-rooms — tapestry so much
better than painting — not adorning merely, but peopling the
wainscots — at which childhood ever and anon would steal a
look, shifting its coverlid (replaced as quickly) to exercise iis
tender courai^e in a momentary eye-encounter with those
stern bright visages, staring reciprocally — all Ovid on the
walls, in colours vivider than his descriptions. Action in
mid sprout, with the unappeasable prudery of Diana ; and
the still more provoking, and almost culinary coolness of
Dan Phoebus, eel-fashion, deliberately divesting of Marsyas.
Then, that haunted room — in which old Mrs Battle died
— whereinto I have crept, but always in the day time, with
a passion of fear ; and a sneaking curiosity, terror-tainted,
to hold communication with the past. — How shall thev
build it up again ?
It was an old deserted place, yet not so long deserted but
that traces of the splendour of past inmates were every-
where apparent. Its furniture was still standing — even to
the tarnished gilt leather battledores, and crumbling
feathers of shuttlecocks in the nursery, which told that
children had once played there. But I was a lonely child,
and had the range at will of every apartment, knew every
nook and corner, wondered and worshipped everywhere.
The solitude of childhood is not so much the mother of
thought, as it is the feeder of love, and silence, and admira-
tion. So strange a passion for the place possessed me in
those years, that, though there lay — I shame to say how
few roods distant from the mansion — half hid by trees, what
I judged some romantic lake, such was the spell which
i8i
The Essays of Elia
bound me to the house, and such my carefulness not to
pass its strict and proper precincts, that the idle waters lay
unexplored for me ; and not till late in life, curiosity pre-
vailing over elder devotion, I found, to my astonishment, a
pretty brawling brook had been the Lacus Incognitus of my
infancy. Variegated views, extensive prospects — and those
at no great distance from the house — I was told of such —
what were they to me, being out of the boundaries of my
Eden? — So far from a wish to roam, I would have drawn,
methought, still closer the fences of my chosen prison ; and
have been hemmed in by a yet securer cincture of those ex-
cluding garden walls. I could have exclaimed with that
garden-loving poet —
Bind me, ye woodbines, in your twines ;
Curl me about, ye gadding vines ;
And oh so close your circles lace,
That I may never leave this place;
But, lest your fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break.
Do you, O brambles, chain me too,
And, courteous briars, nail me through.
I was here as in a lonely temple. Snug firesides — the
low-built roof — parlours ten feet by ten — frugal boards, and
all the homeliness of home — these were the condition of my
birth — the wholesome soil which I was planted in. Yet,
without impeachment to their tenderest lessons, I am not
sorry to have had glances of something beyond ; and to
have taken, if but a peep, in childhood, at the contrasting
accidents of a great fortune.
To have the feeling of gentility, it is not necessary to
have been born gentle. The pride of ancestry may be had
on cheaper terms than to be obliged to an importunate race
of ancestors; and the coatless antiquary in his unem-
blazoned cell, revolving the long line of a Mowbray's or De
Clifford's pedigree, at those sounding names may warm
himself into as gay a vanity as those who do inherit them.
The claims of birth are ideal merely, and what herald
shall go about to strip me of an idea ? Is it trenchant to
their swords ? can it be hacked off as a spur can ? or torn
away like a tarnished garter ?
What, else, were the families of the great to us? what
pleasure should we take in their tedious genealogies, or
their capitulatory brass monuments ? What to us the un-
182
Blakesmoor in H shire
interrupted current of their bloods, if our own did not
answer within us to a cognate and corresponding eleva-
tion ?
Or wherefore else, O tattered and diminished 'Scutcheon
that hung upon the time-worn walls of thy princely stairs,
Blakesmoor ! have I in childhood so oft stood poring
upon the mystic characters — thy emblematic supporters,
with their prophetic " Resurgam " — till, every dreg of
peasantry purging off, I received intomyself Very Gentility?
Thou wert first in my morning eyes ; and of nights, hast
detained my steps from bedward, till it was but a step from
gazing at thee to dreaming on thee.
This is the only true gentry by adoption ; the veritable
change of blood, and not, as empirics have fabled, by
transfusion.
Who it was by dying that had earned the splendid trophy,
I know not, I inquired not ; but its fading rags, and colours
cobweb-stained, told that its subject was of two centuries
back.
And what if my ancestor at that date was some Damoetas
— feeding flocks, not his own, upon the hills of Lincoln —
did I in less earnest vindicate to myself the family trappings
of this once proud ^4^gon ? — repaying by a backward triumph
the insults he might possibly have heaped in his life-time
upon my poor pastoral progenitor.
If it were presumption so to speculate, the present owners
of the mansion had least reason to complain. They had
long forsaken the old house of their fathers for a newer
trifle ; and I was left to appropriate to myself what images
I could pick up, to raise my fancy, or to soothe my vanity.
I was the true descendant of those old W s ; ^ and
not the present family of that name, who had fled the
old waste places.
Mine was that gallery of good old family portraits, which
as I have gone over, giving them in fancy my own family
name, one — and then another — would seem to smile —
reaching forward from the canvas, to recognise the new re-
lationship ; while the rest looked grave, as it seemed, at
the vacancy in their dwelling, and thoughts of fled
posterity.
That Beauty with the cool blue pastoral drapery, and a
lamb — that hung next the great bay window — with the
t' riumer was the name of the owner of Blakesware.]
183
The Essays of Elia
bright yellow H shire hair, and eye of watchet hue — so
like my Alice ! — I am persuaded she was a true Elia —
Mildred Elia, I take it.
Mine too, Blakesmoor, was thy noble Marble Hall, with
its mosaic pavements, and its Twelve Caesars — stately busts
in marble — ranged round : of whose countenances, young
reader of faces as I was, the frowning beauty of Nero, 1
remember, had most of my wonder; but the mild Galba
had rny love. There they stood in the coldness of death,
yet freshness of immortality.
Mine too, thy lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of
authority, high-backed and wickered, once the terror of
luckless poacher, or self-forgetful maiden — so common since,
that bats have roosted in it.
Mine too — whose else ? — thy costly fruit-garden, with its
sun-baked southern wall; the ampler pleasure-garden, rising
backwards from the house in triple terraces, with flower-pots
now of palest lead, save that a speck here and there, saved
from the elements, bespake their pristine state to have been
gilt and glittering ; the verdant quarters backwarder still ;
and, stretching slill beyond, in old formality, thy firry
wilderness, the haunt of the squirrel, and the day-long
murmuring wood-pigeon, with that antique image in the
centre, God or Goddess I wist not ; but child of Athens or
old Rome paid never a sincerer worship to Pan or to
Sylvanus in their native groves, than I to that fragmental
mys'.ery.
Was it for this, that I kissed my childish hands too
fervently in your idol worship, walks and windings of
Blakesmoor ! for this, or what sin of mine, has the plough
passed over your pleasant places ? I sometimes think tliat
as men, when they die, do n ">t die all, so of their exLin-
guished habitations there may be a hope — a germ to be
revivified.
POOR RELATIONS.
A POOR Relation — is the most irrelevant thing in nature, —
a piece of impertinent correspondency, — an odious ap-
proximation,— a haunting conscience,' — a preposterous
shadow, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity, — an
unwelcome remembrancer, — a perj)etually recurring mortifi-
184
Poor Relations
cation, — a drain on your purse, — a more intolerable dun
upon your pride, — a drawback upon success, — a rebuke to
your rising, — a stain in your blood, — a blot on your
'scutcheon, — a rent in your garment, — a death's head at
your banquet, — Agathocles'pot, — a Mordecai in your gate,—
a Lazarus at your door, — a lion in your path, — a frog in your
chamber, — a fly in your ointment, — a mote in your eye, — a
triumph to your enemy, an apology to your friends, — the
one thing not needful, — the hail in harvest, — the ounce of
sour in a pound of sweet.
He is known by his knock. Your heart telleth you
" That is Mr. ." A rap, between familiarity and respect ;
that demands, and, at the same time, seems to despair of,
entertainment. He entereth smiling and — embarrassed.
He holdeth out his hand to you to shake, and — draweth it
back again. He casually looketh in about dinner-time — •
when the table is full. He offcreth to go away, seeing you
have company, but is induced to stay. He filleth a chair,
and your visitor's two children are accommodated at a side
table. He never cometh upon open days, when your wife
says with some complacency, " My dear, perhaps Mr.
will drop in to-day." He remembereth birthdays — and
professeth he is fortunate to have stumbled upon one. Pie
declareth against fish, the turbot being small — yet suffereth
himself to be importuned into a slice against his first
resolution. He sticketh by the port — yet will be prevailed
upon to empty the remainder glass of claret, if a stranger
press it upon him. He is a puzzle to the servants, who are
fearful of being too obsequious, or not civil enough, to him.
The guests think "they have seen him before." Everyone
speculateth upon his condition ; and the most part take
him to be — a tide waiter. He calleth you by your Christian
name, to imp'.v that his other is the same with your own.
He is too familiar by half, yet you wish he had less diffidence.
With half the familiarity he might pass for a casual de-
pendent ; with more boldness he would be in no danger of
being taken for what he is. He is too humble for a friend,
yet taketh on him more state than befits a client. He is a
worse guest than a country tenant, inasmuch as he bringeth
up no rent — yet 'tis odds, from his garb and demeanour,
that your guests take him for one. He is asked to n;ake
one at the w'list taljlc ; refuseth on tlie score of poverty,
and — resents being left out. When the co>npanv b;eak up
i8s
The Essays of Elia
he proffereth to go for a coach — and lets the servant go.
He recollects your grandfather; and will thrust in some
mean and quite unimportant anecdote of — the family. He
knew it when it was not quite so flourishing as "he is blest
in seeing it now." He reviveth past situations to institute
what he calleth — favourable comparisons. With a reflect-
ing sort of congratulation, he will inquire the price of your
furniture : and insults you with a special commendation of
your window-curtains. He is of opinion that the urn is the
more elegant shape, but, after all, there was something
more comfortable about the old tea-kettle — which you must
remember. He dare say you must find a great convenience
in having a carriage of your own, and appealeth to your
lady if it is not so. Inquireth if you have had your arms
done on vellum yet; and did not know, till lately, that
such-and-such had been the crest of the family. His
memory is unseasonable ; his compliments perverse ; his
talk a trouble ; his stay pertinacious ; and when he goeth
away, you dismiss his chair into a corner, as precipitately
as possible, and feel fairly rid of two nuisances.
There is a worse evil under the sun, and that is — a
female Poor Relation. You may do something with the
other; you may pass him off tolerably well; but your
indigent she-relative is hopeless. " He is an old humourist,"
you may say, " and affects to go threadbare. His circum-
stances are better than folks would take them to be. You
are fond of having a Character at your table, and truly he is
one." But in the indications of female poverty there can
be no disguise. No woman dresses below herself from
caprice. The truth must out without shuffling. "She is
plainly related to the L s ; or v/hat does she at their
house?" She is, in all probability, your wife's cousin.
Nine times out of ten, at least, this is the case. Her garb
is something between a gentlewoman and a beggar, yet the
former evidently predominates. She is most provokingly
humble, and ostentatiously sensible to her inferiority. He
may require to be repressed sometimes — aliquatido sufflamt-
na?idus erat — but there is no raising her. You send her soup
at dinner, and she begs to be helped — after the gentlemen.
Mr. requests the honour of taking wine with her ; she
hesitates between Port and Madeira, and choses the former
— because he does. She calls the servant Sir ; and insists
on not troubling him to hold her plate. The housekeeper
1 86
Poor Relations
patronises her. The children's governess takes upon her
to correct her, when she has mistaken the piano for harpsi-
chord.
Richard Amlet, Esq., in the play, is a noticeable instance
of the disadvantages, to which this chimerical notion of
affinity constituting a claim to an acquaifttance, may subject
the spirit of a gentleman. A little foolish blood is all that
is betwixt him and a lady with a great estate. His stars are
perpetually crossed by the malignant maternity of an old
woman, who persists in calling him "her son Dick." But
she has wherewithal in the end to recompense his in-
dignities, and float him again upon the brilliant surface,
under which it had been her seeming business and pleasure
all along to sink him. All men, besides, are not of Dick's
temperament. I knew an Amlet in real life, who wanting
Dick's buoyancy, sank indeed. Poor W ^ was of my
own standing at Christ's, a fine classic, and a youth of
promise. If he had a blemish, it was too much pride ; but
its quality was inoffensive ; it was not of that sort which
hardens the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a distance ;
it only sought to ward off derogation from itself. It was
the principle of self-respect carried as far as it could go,
without infringing upon that respect, which he would have
every one else equally maintain for himself He would
have you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a
quarrel have I had with him, when we were rather older boys,
and our tallness made us more obnoxious to observation in
the blue clothes, because I would not thread the alleys and
blind ways of the town with him to elude notice, when we
have been out together on a holiday in the streets of this
sneering and prying metropolis. W went, sore with
these notions, to Oxford, where the dignity and sweetness
of a scholar's life, meeting with the alloy of a humble intro-
duction, wrought in him a passionate devotion to the place,
with a profound aversion to the society. The servitor's
gown (worse than his school array) clung to him with Nessian
venom. He thought himself ridiculous in a garb, under
which Latimer must have walked erect ; and in which
Hooker, in his young days, possibly flaunted in a vein of no
discommendable vanity. In the depths of college shades,
or in his lonely chamber, the poor student shrunk from ob-
servation. He found shelter among books, which insult not ;
[' Favell, see note, p. 26.]
187
The Essays of Elia
and studies, that ask no questions of a youth's finances.
He was lord of his Hbrary, and seldom cared for looking
out beyond his domains. The healing influence of studious
pursuits was upon him, to soothe and to abstract. He was
almost a healthy man ; when the waywardness of his fate
broke out against him with a second and worse malignity.
The father of W had hitherto exercised the humble
profession of house-painter at N , near Oxford. A
supposed interest with some of the heads of colleges had
now induced him to take up his abode in that city, with
the hope of being employed upon some public works which
were talked of. From that moment I read in the counten-
ance of the young man, the determination which at length
tore him from academical pursuits for ever. To a person
unacquainted with our Universities, the distance between
the gownsmen and the townsmen, as they are called — the
trading part of the latter especially — is carried to an excess
that would appear harsh and incredible. The temperament
of W 's father was diametrically the reverse of his own.
Old W was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who,
with his son upon his arm, would stand bowing and scrap-
ing, cap in hand, to anything that wore the semblance of a
gown — insensible to the winks and opener remonstrances
of the young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or equal in
standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously
ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W
must change the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He chose
the former ; and let the sturdy moralist, who strains the
point of the filial duties as high as they can bear, censure
the dereliction ; he cannot estmiate the struggle. I stood
with W , the last afternoon I ever saw him, under the
eaves of his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane
leading from the High Street to the back of **** college,
where W kept his rooms. He seemed thoughtful, and
more reconciled. I ventured to rally him — finding him in
a better mood — upon a representation of the Artist
Evangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were begin-
ning to flourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort
of frame over his really handsome shop, either as a token
of prosperity, or badge of gratitude to his saint. W
looked up at the Luke, and, like Satan, "knew his mounted
sijin — and Hed." A letter on his father's table the next
morning, announced that he had accepted a commission
i88
Poor Relations
in a regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was
among the first who perished beiore the walls of St.
Sebastian.
I do not know how, upon a subject which I began with
treating half seriously, I should have fallen upon a recital
so eminently painful ; but this theme of poor relationship is
replete with so much matter for tragic as well as comic
associations, that it is difficult to keep the account distinct
without blending. The earliest impressions which I re-
ceived on this matter, are certainly not attended with any-
thing painful, or very humiliating, in the recalling. At my
father's table (no very splendid one) was to be found, every
Saturday, the mysterious figure of an aged gentleman,
clothed in neat black, of a sad yet comely appearance.
His deportment was of the essence of gravity; his words
few or none; and I was not to make a noise in his
presence. I had little inclination to have done so — for my
cue was to admire in silence. A particular elbow chair was
appropriated to him, which was in no case to be violated.
A peculiar sort of sweet pudding, which appeared on no
other occasion, distinguished the days of his coming. I
used to think him a prodigiously rich man. All I could
make out of him was, that he and my father had been
schoolfellow^s a world ago at Lincoln, and that he came
from the Mint. The Mint I knew to be a place where all
the money was coined — and I thought he was the owner of
all that money. Awful ideas of the Tower twined them-
selves about his presence. He seemed above human in-
firmities and passions. A sort of melancholy grandeur
invested him. From some inexplicable doom 1 fancied
him obliged to go about in an eternal suit of mourning; a
captive — a stately being, let out of the Tower on Saturdays.
Often have I wondered at the temerity of my father, who,
in spite of an habitual general respect which we all in
common manifested towards him, would venture now and
then to stand up against him in some argument, touching
their youthful days. The houses of the ancient city of
Lincoln are divided (as most of my readers know) between
the dwellers on the hill, and in the valley. This marked
distinction formed an obvious division between the boys
who lived above (however brought together in a common
school) and the boys whose paternal residence was on the
plain ; a sufficient cause of hostility in the code of these
189
The Essays of Elia
young Grotiuses. My father had been a leading
Mountaineer; and would still maintain the general
superiority, in skill and hardihood, of the Above Boys (his
own faction) over the Below Boys (so were they called), of
which party his contemporary had been a chieftain. Many
and hot were the skirmishes on this topic — the only one
upon which the old gentleman was ever brought out — and
bad blood bred ; even sometimes almost to the recom-
mencement (so I expected) of actual hostilities. But my
father, who scorned to insist upon advantages, generally
contrived to turn the conversation upon some adroit by-
commendation of the old Minster ; in the general pre-
ference of which, before all other cathedrals in the island,
the dweller on the hill, and the plain-born, could meet on a
conciliating level, and lay down their less important
differences. Once only I saw the old gentleman really
ruffled, and I remembered with anguish the thought that
came over me: "Perhaps he will never come here again."
He had been pressed to take another plate of the viand,
which I have already mentioned as the indispensable con-
comitant of his visits. He had refused with a resistance
amounting to rigour — when my aunt, an old Lincolnian,
but who had something of this in common with my cousin
Bridget, that she would sometimes press civility out of
season — uttered the following memorable application — " Do
take another slice, Mr. Billet, for you do not get pudding
every day." The old gentleman said nothing at the time —
but he took occasion in the course of the evening, when
some argument had intervened between them, to utter with
an emphasis which chilled the company, and which chills
me now as I write it — "Woman, you are superannuated."
John Billet did not survive long, after the digesting of this
affront; but he survived long enough to assure me that
peace was actually restored! and, if I remember aright,
another pudding was discreetly substituted in the place of
that which had occasioned the offence. He died at the
Mint (anno 1781) where he had long held, what he
accounted, a comfortable independence; and with five
pounds, fourteen shiUings, and a penny, which were found
in his escrutoire after his decease, left the world, blessing
God that he had enough to bury him, and that he had
never been obliged to any man for a sixpence. This was —
a Poor Relation.
190
Stage Illusion
STAGE ILLUSION.
A PLAY is said to be well or ill acted in proportion to the
scenical illusion produced. Whether such illusion can in
any case be perfect, is not the question. The nearest ap-
proach to it, we are told, is, when the actor appears wholly
unconscious of the presence of spectators. In tragedy — in
all which is to affect the feelings — this undivided attention
to his stage business seems indispensable. Yet it is, in
fact, dispensed with every day by our cleverest tragedians;
and while these references to an audience, in the shape of
rant or sentiment, are not too frequent or palpable, a
sufficient quantity of illusion for the purposes of dramatic
interest may be said to be produced in spite of them. But,
tragedy apart, it may be inquired whether, in certain char-
acters in comedy, especially those which are a little ex-
travagant, or which involve some notion repugnant to the
moral sense, it is not a proof of the highest skill in the
comedian when, without absolutely appealing to an audience,
he keeps up a tacit understanding with them ; and makes
them, unconsciously to themselves, a party in the scene.
The utmost nicety is required in the mode of doing this ;
but we speak only of the great artists in the profession.
The most mortifying infirmity in human nature, to feel
in ourselves, or to contemplate in another, is, perhaps,
cowardice. To see a coward done to the lije upon a stage
would produce anything but mirth. Yet we most of us
remember Jack Bannister's cowards. Could anything be
more agreeable, more pleasant? We loved the rogues.
How was this effected but by the exquisite art of the actor
in a perpetual sub-insinuation to us, the spectators, even in
the extremity of the shaking fit, that he was not half such
a coward as we took him for? We saw all the common
symptoms of the malady upon him ; the quivering lip, the
cowering knees, the teeth chattering ; and could have
sworn "that man was frightened." But we forgot all the
while — or kept it almost a secret to ourselves — that he
never once lost his self-possession ; that he let out by a
thousand droll looks and gestures — meant to us, and not
at all supposed to be visible to his fellows in the scene,
191
The Essays of Elia
that his confidence in his own resources had never once
deserted him. Was this a genuine picture of a coward ?
or not rather a Ukeness, which the clever artist contrived
to palm upon us instead of an original; while we secretly
connived at the delusion for the purpose of greater pleasure,
than a more genuine counterfeiting of the imbecility, help-
lessness, and utter self desertion, which we know to be
concomitants of cowardice in real life, could have given us?
Why are misers so hateful in the world, and so endurable
on the stage, but because the skilful actor, by a sort of
sub-reference, rather than direct appeal to us, disarms the
character of a great deal of its odiousness, by seeming to
engage our compassion for the insecure tenure by which
he holds his money bags and parchments? By this subtle
vent half of the hate fulness of the character — the self-
closeness with which in real life it coils itself up from the
sympathies of men — evaporates. The miser becomes
sympathetic ; i.e. is no genuine miser. Here again a
diverting likeness is substituted for a very disagreeable
reality.
Spleen, irritability — the pitinble infirmities of old men,
which produce only pain to behold in the realities, counter-
feited upon a stage, divert not altogether for the comic
appendages to them, but in part from an inner conviction
that they are being acted before us ; that a likeness only is
going on, and not the thing itself. They please by being
done under the life, or beside it ; not to the life. When
Gatty acts an old man, is he angry indeed ? or only a
pleasant counterfeit, just enough of a likeness to recognise,
without pressing upon us the uneasy sense of a reality.
Comedians, paradoxical as it may seem, may be too
natural. It was the case with a late actor. Nothing could
be more earnest or true than the manner of Mr. Emery ;
this told excellently in his Tyke, and characters of a tragic
cast. But when he carried the same rigid exclusiveness of
attention to the stage business, and wilful blindness and
oblivion of everything before the curtain into his comedy,
it produced a harsh and dissonant effect. He was out of
keeping with the rest of the PersoncB Dramatis. There
was as little link between him and them as betwixt himself
and the audience. He was a third estate, dry, repulsive,
and unsocial to all. Individually considered, his execution
was masterly. But comedy is not this unbending thing;
192
Stage Illusion
for this reason, that the same degree of credibility is not
reciuired of it as to serious scenes. The degrees of credi-
bility demanded to the two things may be illustrated by
the different sort of truth which we expect when a man tells
us a mournful or a merry story. If we suspect the former
of falsehood in any one tittle, we reject it altogether. Our
tears refuse to flow at a suspected imposition. But the
teller of a mirthful tale has latitude allowed him. We are
content with less than absolute truth. 'Tis the same with
dramatic illusion. We confess we love in comedy to see
an audience naturalised behind the scenes, taken into the
interest of the drama, welcomed as by-standers however.
There is something ungracious in a comic actor holding
himself aloof from all participation or concern with those
who are come to be diverted by him. Macbeth must see
the dagger, and no ear but his own be told of it ; but an
old fool in farce may think he sees something, and by con-
scious words and looks express it, as plainly as he can
speak, to pit, box, and gallery. When an impertinent in
tragedy, an Osric, for instance, breaks in upon the serious
passions of the scene, we approve of the contempt with
which he is treated. But when the pleasant impertinent of
comedy, in a piece purely meant to give delight, and raise
mirth out of whimsical perplexities worries the studious
man with taking up his leisure, or making his house his
home, the same sort of contempt expiessed (however
natural) would destroy the balance of delight in the
spectators. To make the intrusion comic, the actor who
plays the annoyed man must a little desert nature ; he
must, in short, be thinking of the audience, and express
only so much dissatisfaction and peevishness as is con-
sistent with the pleasure of comedy. In other words, his
perplexity must seem half put on. If he repel the intruder
with the sober set face of a man in earnest, and more
especially if he deliver his expostulations in a tone which
in the worli must necessarily provoke a duel; his real life
manner will destroy the whimsical and purely dramatic
existence of the other character (which to render it comic
demands an antagonist comicality on the part of the
character opposed to it), and convert what was meant for
mirth, rather than belief, into a downright piece of im-
pertinence indeed, which would raise no diversion in us,
but rather stir pain, to see inflicted in earnest upon any
N 193
The Essays of Elia
unworthy person. A very judicious actor (in most of his
parts) seems to have fallen into an error of this sort in
his playing with Mr. Wrench in the farce of Free and
Easy.
Many instances would be tedious ; these may suffice to
show that comic acting at least does not always demand
from the performer that strict abstraction from all refer-
ence to an audience which is exacted of it; but that
in some cases a sort of compromise may take place,
and all the purposes of dramatic delight be attained by
a judicious understanding, not too openly announced,
between the ladies and gentlemen — on both sides of the
curtain.
TO THE SHADE OF ELLISTON.
JOYOUSEST of once embodied spirits, whither at length hast
thou flown? To what genial region are we permitted to
conjecture that thou hast flitted?
Art thou sowing thy wild oats yet (the harvest time was
*till to come with thee) upon casual sands of Avernus? or
art thou enacting Rover (as we would gladlitr think) by
wandering Elysian streams?
This mortal frame, while thou didst play thy brief antics
amongst us, was in truth anything but a prison to thee, as
the vain Platonist dreams of this body to be no better than
a county gaol, forsooth, or some house of durance vile,
whereof the five senses are the fetters. Thou knewest
better than to be in a hurry to cast off those gyves ; and
had notice to quit, I fear, before thou wert quite ready to
abandon this fleshy tenement. It was thy Pleasure- Mouse,
thy Palace of Dainty Devices : thy Louvre, or thy White
Hall.
What new mysterious lodgings dost thou tenant now ? or
when may we expect thy aerial house-warming?
Tartarus we know, and we have read of the Blessed
Shades: now cannot I intelligibly fancy thee in either?
Isit too much to hazard to conjecture, that (as the school-
men admitted a receptacle apart for Patriarchs and un-
chrisom Babes) there may exist — not far perchance from
194
To the Shade of Elliston
that storehouse of all vanities, which Milton saw in visions
— a Limbo somewhere for Players ? and that
Up thither like aerial vapours fly
Both all Stage things, and all that in Stage things
Built their fond hopes of glory, or lasting fame?
All the unaccomplish'd works of Authoi ;' hands,
Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixed,
Damn'd upon earth fleet thither —
Play, Opera, Farce, with all their trumpery. —
There, by the neighbouring moon (by some not
improperly supposed thy Regent Planet upon earth) mayst
thou not still be acting thy managerial pranks, great disem-
bodied Lessee? but Lessee still, and still a Manager.
In Green Rooms, impervious to mortal eye, the muse
beholds thee wielding posthumous empire.
Thin ghosts of Figurantes (never plump on earth) circle
thee in endlessly, and still their song is Fie on sinful
Phantasy.
Maiinificent were thy cappriccios on this globe of earth,
Robert William Elliston ! for as yet we know not thy
new name in heaven.
It irks me to think, that, stript of thy regalities, thou
shouldst ferry over, a poor forked shade, in crazy Stygian
wherry. Methinks I hear the old boatman, paddiing by
the weedy wharf, with raucid voice, bawling "Sculls,
Sculls:" to which, with waving hand, and majestic action,
thou deignest no reply, other than in two curt mono-
syllables, "No: Oars."
But the laws of Pluto's kingdom know small difference
between king, and cobbler ; manager, and call-boy ; and, if
haply your dates of life were conterminant, you are quietly
taking your passage, cheek by cheek (O ignoble levelling
of Death) with the shade of some recently departed candle-
snuffer.
But mercy! what strippings, what tearing off of histrionic
robes, and private vanities! what denudations to the bone,
before the surly Ferryman will admit you to set a foot
within his battered lighter.
Crowns, sceptres ; shield, sword, and truncheon ; thy
own coronation robes (for thou hast brought the whole
property man's wardrobe with thee, enough to sink a navy) ;
the judge's ermine; the coxcomb's wig; the snuff-box a la
Foppington — all must overboard, he positively swears — and
195
The Essays of Elia
that ancient mariner brooks no denial ; for, since the tire-
some monodrame of the old Thracian Harper, Chan^n, it
is to be believed, hath shown small taste for theatricals.
Aye, now 'tis done. You are just boat weight ; pura a
puta anima.
But bless me, how Utile you look !
So shall we all look — kings and keysars — stript for the
last voyage.
But the murky rogue pushes off. Adieu, pleasant and
thrice pleasant shade ! with my parting thanks for many a
heavy hour of life lightened by thy harmless extravaganzas,
public or domestic.
Rhadamanthus, who tries the lighter causes below,
leaving to his two brethren the heavy calendars — honest
Rhadamanth, always partial to players, weighing their
parti-coloured existence here upon earth, — making account
of the few foibles, that may have shaded thy real life, as we
call it (though, substantially, scarcely less a vapour than
thy idlest vagaries upon the boards of Drury) as but of so
many echoes, natural re-percussions, and results to be
expected from the assumed extravagances of thy secondary
or mock life, nightly upon a stage — after a lenient castiga-
tion, with rods lighter than of those Medu >ean ringlets, but
just enough to "whip the offending Adam out of thee,"
shall courteously dismiss thee at the right hand gate — the
o. P. side of Hades — that conducts to masques, and merry-
makings, in the Theatre Royal of Proserpine.
PL.\UDITO, ET VALETO.
ELLISTOx\UANA.
My acquaintance with the pleasant creature, whose loss we
all deplore, was but slight.
My first introduction to E., which afterwards ripened into
an acquaintance a little on tliis side of intimacy, was over a
counter in the Leamington Spa Library, then newly entered
upon by a branch of his family. E., whom nothing mis-
became— to auspicate, I suppose, the filial concern, and set
it a-going with a lustre — was serving in person two damsels
fair, who had come into the shop ostensibly to inquire for
196
Ellistoniana
some new publication, but in reality to have a sight of the
illustrious shopman, hoping some conference. With what an
air did he reach down the volume, dispassionately giving his
opinion of the worth of the work in question, and launching
out into a dissertation on its comparative merits with
those of certain publications of a similar stamp, its rivals ! his
enchanted customers fairly hanging on his lips, subdued to
their authoritative sentence. So have I seen a gentleman in
comedy acting the shopman. So Lovelace sold his gloves
in King Street. I admired the histrionic art, by which he
contrived to carry clean away every notion of disgrace, from
the occupation he had so generously submitted to ; and
from that hour I judged him, with no after repentance, to
be a person, with whom it would be a felicity to be more
acquainted.
To descant upon his merits as a Comedian would be
superfluous. With his blended private and professional
habits alone I have to do ; that harmonious fusion of the
manners of the player into those of everyday life, which
brought the stage boards into streets, and dining-parlours,
and kept up the play when the play was ended. — " I like
Wrench," a friend was saying to him one day, "because he
is the same natural, easy creature, on the stage, that he is
off.'' " My case exactly," retorted Elliston — with a charm-
ing forgetfulness, that the converse of a proposition does
not always lead to the same conclusion — " I am the same
person off\\\Q^ stage that I am on.'" The inference, at first
sight, seems identical ; but examine it a little, and it
confesses only, that the one performer was never, and the
other always acting.
And in truth this was the charm of Elliston's private
deportment. You had spirited performance always going
on before your eyes, with nothing to pay. As where a
monarch takes up his casual abode for a night, the poorest
hovel which he honours by his sleeping in it, becomes ipso
facto for that time a palace ; so wherever Elliston walked,
sate, or stood still, there was the theatre. He carried about
with him his pit, boxes, and galleries, and set up his portable
playhouse at corners of streets, and in the market places.
Upon flintiest pavements he trod the boards still ; and if
his theme chanced to be passionate, the green baize carpet
of tragedy spontaneously rose beneath his feet. Now this
was hearty and showed a love for his art. So Appelles
197
The Essays of Elia
always painted — in thought. So G. D.^ ahvays poetises.
I hate a lukewarm artist. I have known actors — and some
of them of Elliston's own stamp — who shall have agreeably
been amusing you in the part of a rake or a coxcomb,
through the two or three hours of their dramatic existence ;
but no sooner does the curtain fall with its leaden clatter,
but a spirit of lead seems to seize on all their faculties.
They emerge sour, morose persons, intolerable to their
families, servants, &c. Another shall have been expanding
your heart with generous deeds and sentiments, till it even
beats with yearnings of universal sympathy ; you absolutely
long to go home, and do some good action. The play
seems tedious, till you can get fairly out of the house, and
realise your laudable intentions. At length the final bell
rings, and this cordial representative of all that is amiable
in human breasts steps forth — a miser. Elliston was
more of a piece. Did he play Ranger ? and did Ranger
fill the general bosom of the town with satisfaction ? why
should he not be Ranger, and diffuse the same cordial
satisfaction among his private circles ? with his temperament,
his animal spirits, his good nature, his follies perchance,
could he do better than identify himself with his impersona-
tion ? Are we to like a pleasant rake, or coxcomb, on the
stage, and give ourselves airs of aversion for the identical
character, presented to us in actual life ? or what would the
performer have gained by divesting himself of the impersona-
tion? Could the man Elliston have been essentially
different from his part, even if he had avoided to reflect to
us studiously, in private circles, the airy briskness, the
forwardness, and, scape-goat trickeries of his prototype ?
" But there is some thing not natural in this everlasting
acting ; we want the real man."
Are you quite sure that it is not the man himself, whom
you cannot, or will not see, under some adventitious
trappings, which, nevertheless, sit not at all inconsistently
upon him ? What if it is the nature of some men to be
highly artificial ? The fault is least reprehensible in players.
Gibber was his own Foppington, with almost as much wit
as Vanbrugh could add to it.
" My conceit of his person," — it is Ben Jonson speaking
of Lord Bacon, — " was never increased towards him by his
place or /wnours, but I have, and do reverence him for the
[' George Dyer.]
198
Ellistoniana
greatness, that was only proper to himself; in that he
seemed to me ever one of the greatest men, that had been
in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that heaven
would give him strength; for greatness he could not
want."
The quality here commended was scarcely less conspicu-
ous in the subject of these idle reminiscences than in my
Lord Verulam. Those who haveimagined that anunexpected
elevation to the direction of a great London Theatre, affected
the consequence of EUiston, or at all changed his nature, knew
not the essential greatness of the man whom they disparage.
It was my fortune to encounter him near St. Dunstan's
Church (which, with its punctual giants, is now no more
than dust and a shadow), on the morning of his election to
that high office. Grasping my hand with a look of signifi-
cance, he only uttered, — " Have you heard the news?" —
then with another look following up the blow, he subjoined,
" I am the future Manager of Drury Lane Theatre." —
Breathless as he saw me, he stayed not for congratulation
or reply, but mutely stalked away, leaving me to chew upon
his new-blown dignities at leisure. In fact, nothing could
be said to it. Expressive silence alone could muse his
praise. This was in his great style.
But was he less great (be witness, O ye Powers of
Equanimity, that supported in the ruins of Carthage the
consular exile, and more recently transmuted for a more
illustrious exile, the barren constableship of Elba into an
image of Imperial France), when, in melancholy after-years,
again, much near the same spot, I met him, when that
sceptre had been wrested from his hand, and his dominion
was curtailed to the petty managership, and part proprietor-
ship, of the small Olympic, his Elba 1 He still played
nightly upon the boards of Drury, but in parts alas !
allotted to him, not magnificently distributed by him.
Waiving his great loss as nothing, and magnificently sinking
the sense of fallen material grandeur in the more Hberal
resentment of depreciations done to his more lofty intellectual
pretensions. " Have you heard " (his customary exordium)
— "have you heard," said he, "how they treat me? they
put me in comedy." Thought I — but his finger on his lips
forbade any verbal interruption — "where could they have
put you better?" Then, after a pause — "Where I
formerly played Romeo, I now play Mercutio," — and so
199
The Essays of Elia
again he stalked away, neither staying, nor caring for^
responses.
O, it was a rich scene, — but Sir A C ,' the best
of story-tellers and surgeons, who mends a lame narrative
almost as well as he sets a fracture, alone could do justice
lO it, — that I was a witness to, in the tarnished room (that
had once been green) of that same little Olympic. There,
after his deposition from Imperial Drury, he substituted a
throne. That Olympic Hill was his " highest heaven ; "
himself " Jove in his chair." There he sat in state, while
before him, on complaint of prompter, was brought for
judgment — -how shall I describe her? — one of those little
tawdry things that flirt at the tails of choruses — a proba-
tioner for the town, in either of its senses — the pertest little
drab — a dirty fringe and appendage of the lamps' smoke —
who, it seems, on some disapprobation expressed by a
" highly respectable " audience, — had precipitately quitted
her station on the boards, and withdrawn her small talents
in disgust.
"And how dare you," said her manager, — assuming a
censorial severity, which would have crushed the confidence
of a Vestris, and disarmed that beautiful Rebel herself of
her professional caprices — I verily believe, he thought her
standing before him — "how dare you. Madam, withdraw
yourself, without a notice, from your theatrical duties ? "
"I was hissed, Sir." "And you have the presumption to
decide upon the taste of the town?" "I don't know that.
Sir, but I will never stand to be hissed," was the subjoinder
of young Confidence — when gathering up his features into
one significant mass of wonder, pity, and expostulatory
indignation — in a lesson never to have been lost upon a
creature less forward than she who stood before him — his
words were these : "They have hissed ;«^."
'Twas the identical argument a fortiori, which the son of
Peleus uses to Lycaon trembling under his lance, to
persuade him to take his destiny with a good grace. " I
too am mortal." And it is to be believed that in both
cases the rhetoric missed of its application, for want of a
proper understanding with the faculties of the respective
■ecipients.
" Quite an Opera pit," he said to me, as he was
courteously conducting me over the benches of his Surrey
[' Sir Anthony Carlisle.]
Thoughts on Books and Reading
Theatre, the last retreat, and recess, of his every-day waning
grandeur.
Those who knew EUiston, will know the manner in which
he pronounced the latter sentence of the few words I am
about to record. One proud day to me he took his roast
mutton with us in the Temple, to which I had superadded
a preliminary haddock. After a rather plentiful partaking
of the meagre banquet, not unrefreshed with the humbler
sort of liquors, I made a sort of apology for the humility of
the fare, observing that for my own part I never ate but
one dish at dinner. " I too never eat but one thing at
dinner," — was his reply — then after a pause — " reckoning
fish as nothinc;." The manner was all. It was as if by one
peremptory sentence he had decreed the annihilation of all
the savoury esculents, which the pleasant and nutritious
food-giving Ocean pours forth upon poor humans from her
watery bosom. This was greatness, tempered with con-
siderate tenderness to the feelings of his scanty but welcom-
ing entertainer.
Great wert thou in thy life, Robert William Elliston ! and
not lessened in thy death, if report speak truly, which says
that thou didst direct that thy mortal remains should repose
under no inscription but one of pure Latinity. Classical
was thy bringing up ! and beautiful was the feeling on thy
last bed, which connecting the man with the boy, took thee
back to thy latest exercise of imagination, to the days when,
undreaming of Theatres and Managerships, thou wert a
scholar, and an early ripe one, under the roofs builded be
the munificent and pious Colet. For thee the Pauliny
Muses weep. In elegies, that shall silence this crude prose,
they shall celebrate thy praise.
DETACHED THOUGHTS ON BOOKS AND
READING.
To mind the inside of a book is to entertain one's self with the forced
product of another man's brain. Now I think a man of quality and
breeding may be much amused with the natural sprouts of his own.
Lord Foppmgton in the Relapse.
An ingenious acquaintance of my own was so much struck
with this bright sally of his Lordship, that he has left off
reading altogether, to the great improvement of his
The Essays of Elia
originality. At the hazard of losing some credit on this
head, I must confess that I dedicate no inconsiderable
portion of my time to other people's thoughts. I dream
away my life in others' speculations. I love to lose myself
in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am
reading; I cannot sit and think. Books think for me.
I have no repugnances. Shaftesbury is not too genteel
for me, nor Jonathan Wild too low. I can read anything
which I call a book. There are things in that shape which
I cannot allow for such.
In this catalogue of books ivhich are no books — biblia a-
biblia — I reckon Court Calendars, Directories, Pocket
Books, Draught Boards, bound and lettered on the back,
Scientific Treatises, Almanacks, Statutes at Large ; the
works of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, Beattie, Soame Jenyns,
and, generally, all those volumes which "no gentleman's
library should be without : " the Histories of Flavius
Josephus (that learned Jew), and Paley's Moral Philosophy.
With these exceptions, 1 can read almost anything. I bless
my stars for a taste so catholic, so unexcluding.
I confess that it moves my spleen to see these things in
books' dothifig perched upon shelves, like false saints,
usurpers of true shrines, intruders into the sanctuary,
thrusting out the legitimate occupants. To reach down a
well-bound semblance of a volume, and hope it some kind-
hearted play-book, then, opening what "seem its leaves,"
to come bolt upon a withering Population Essay. To
expect a Steele, or a Farquhar, and find — Adam Smith.
To view a well-arranged assortment of blockheaded
Encyclopaedias (Anglicanas or Metropolitanas) set out in an
array of Russia, or Morocco, when a tithe of that good
leather would comfortably re-clothe my shivering folios;
would renovate Paracelsus himself, and enable old Raymund
Lully to look like himself again in the world. I never see
these impostors, but I long to strip them, to warm my
ragged veterans in their spoils.
To be strong-backed and neat-bound is the desideratum
of a volume. Magnificence comes after. This, when it
can be afforded, is not to be lavished upon all kinds of
books indiscriminately. I would not drtss a set of
Magazines, for instance, in full suit. The dishabille, or
half-binding (with Russia backs ever) is our costume. A
Shakspeare, or a Milton (unless the first editions), it were
202
Thoughts on Books and Reading
mere foppery to trick out in gay apparel. The possession
of them confers no distinction. 1'he exterior of them (the
things themselves being so common), strange to say, raises
no sweet emotions, no tickling sense of property in the
owner. Thomson's Seasons, again, looks best (I maintain
it) a little torn, and dog's-eared. How beautiful to a
genuine lover of reading are the sullied leaves, and worn-
out appearance, nay, the very odour (beyond Russia), if we
would not forget kind feelings in fastidiousness, of an old
" Circulating Library " Tom Jones, or Vicar of Wakefield !
How they speak of the thousand thumbs, that have turned
over their pages with delight ! — of the lone sempstress,
whom they may have cheered (milliner, or harder-working
raantua-maker) after her long day's needle-toil, running far
into midnight, when she has snatched an hour, ill-spared
from sleep, to steep her cares, as in some Lethean cup, in
spelling out their enchanting contents ! Who would have
them a whit less soiled? What better condition could we
desire to see them in ?
In some respects the better a book is, the less it de-
mands from binding. Fielding, SmoUet, Sterne, and all
that class of perpetually self-reproductive volumes — Great
Nature's Stereotypes — we see them individually perish with
less regret, because we know the copies of them to be
"eterne." But where a book is at once both good and rare
— where the individual is almost the species, and when that
perishes,
We know not where is that Promethean torch
That can its light relumine —
such a book, for instance, as the Life of the Duke of
Newcastle, by his Duchess — no casket is rich enough, no
casing sufficiently durable, to honour and keep safe such a
jewel.
Not only rare volumes of this description, which seem
hopeless ever to be reprinted ; but old editions of writers,
such as Sir Philip Sydney, Bishop Taylor, Milton in his
prose-works. Fuller — of whom we have reprints, yet the
books themselves, though they go about, and are talked of
here and there, we know, have not endenizened themselves
(nor possibly ever will) in the national heart, so as to
become stock books — it is good to possess these in durable
and costly covers. I do not care for a First Folio of
203
The Essays of Elia
Shakspeare. I rather prefer the common editions of Rowe
and Tonson without notes, and vi'ith. plates, which, being so
execrably bad, serve as maps, or modest remembrancers, to
the text ; and without pretending to any supposable emula-
tion with it, are so much better than the Shakspeare gallery
engravings, which did. I have a community of feeling with
my countrymen about his Plays, and I like those editions of
him best, which have been oftenest tumbled about and
handled. — On the contrary, I cannot read Beaumont and
Fletcher but in Folio. The Octavo editions are painful to
look at. I have no sympathy with them. If they were as
much read as the current editions of the other poet, I
should prefer them in that shape to the older one. I ao
not know a more heartless sight than the reprint of the
Anatomy of Melancholy. What need was there of un-
earthing the bones of that fantastic old great man, to ex-
pose them in a winding-sheet of the newest fashion to
modern censure ? what hapless stationer could dream of
Burton ever becoming popular? — The wretched Malone
could not do worse, when he bribed the sexton of Stratford
church to let him white-wash the painted effigy of old Shak-
speare, which stood there, in rude but lively fashion
depicted, to the very colour of the cheek, the eye, the eye-
brow, hair, the very dress he used to wear — the only
authentic testimony we had, however imperfect, of these
curious parts and parcels of him. They covered him over
with a coat of white paint. By , if I had been a
justice of peace for Warwickshire, I would have clapt both
commentator and sexton fast in the stocks, for a pair of
meddling sacrilegious varlets.
I think I see them at their work — these sapient trouble-
tombs.
Shall I be thought fantastical, if I confess, that the names
of some of our poets sound sweeter, and have a finer relish
to the ear — to mine, at least — than that of Milton or of
Shakspeare ? It may be, that the latter are more staled and
rung uDon in common discourse. The sweetest names,
and which carry a perfume in the mention, are, Kit
Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and
Cowley.
Much depends upon 7vhen and 7vhere you read a book.
In the five or six impatient minutes, before the dinner is
quite ready, who would think of taking up the Fairy
204
Thoughts on Books and Reading
Queen for a stop-gap, or a volume of Bishop Andrewes
sermons?
Milton almost requires a solemn service of music to be
played before you enter upon nim. But he brings his
music, to which, who listens, had need bring docile
thoughts, and purged ears.
Winter evenings — the world shut out — with less of
ceremony the gentle Shakspeare enters. At such a season,
the Tempest, or his own Winter's Tale —
These two poets you cannot avoid reading aloud — to
yourself, or (as it chances) to some single person listening.
More than one — and it degenerates into an audience.
Books of quick interest, that hurry on for incidents, are
for the eye to glide over only. It will not do to read them
out. I could never listen to even the better kind of
modern novels without extreme irksomeness.
A newspaper, read out, is intolerable. In some of the
Bank offices it is the custom (to save so much individual
time) for one of the clerks — who is the best scholar — to
commerce upon the Times, or the Chronicle, and recite its
entire contents aloud pro bono publico. With every ad-
vantage of lungs and elocution, the effect is singularly
vapid. In barbers' shops and public-houses a fellow will
get up, and spell out a paragraph which he communicates
as some discovery. Another follows with his selection.
So the entire journal transpires at length by piece-meal.
Seldom-readers are slow readers, and without this expedient
no one in the company would probably ever travel through
the contents of a whole paper.
Newspapers always excite curiosity. No one ever lays one
down without a feeling of disappointment.
What an eternal time that gentleman in black, at Nando's,
keeps the paper ! I am sick of hearing the waiter bawling
out incessantly, "the Chronicle is in hand, Sir."
Coming in to an inn at night — having ordered your
supper — what can be more delightful than to find lying in
the window-seat, left there time out of mind by the careless-
ness of some former guest — two or three numbers of the old
Town and Country Magazine, with its amusing iete-a-iefe
pictures — "The Royal Lover and Lady G ;" "The
Melting Platonic and the Old Beau," — and such like anti-
quated scandal? Would you exchange it — at that time,
and in that place — for a better book ?
205
The Essays of Elia
Poor Tobin, who latterly fell blind, did not regret it so
much for the weightier kinds of reading — the Paradise Lost,
or Comus, he could have read to him — but he missed the
pleasure of skimming over with his own eye a magazine,
or a light pamphlet.
I should not care to be caught in the serious a\ enues of
some cathedral alone and reading Cafidtde.
I do not remember a more whimsical surprise than having
been once detected — by a familiar damsel — reclining at my
ease upon the grass, on Primrose Hill (her Cythera), read-
ing— Pamela. There was nothing in the book to make &
man seriously ashamed at the exposure ; but as she seated
herself down by me, and seemed determined to read in
company, I could have wished it had been — any other
book. We read on very sociably for a few pages ; and, not
finding the author much to her taste, she got up, and — went
away. Gentle casuist, I leave it to thee to conjecture,
whether the blush (for there was one between us) was the
property of the nymph or the swain in this dilemma. From
me you shall never get the secret.
I am not much a friend to out-of-doors reading. I cannot
settle my spirits to it. I knew a Unitarian minister, who
was generally to be seen upon Snow Hill (as yet Skinner's
Street 7vas not), between the hours of ten and eleven in the
morning, studying a volume of Lardner. I own this to
have been a strain of abstraction beyond my reach. I used
to admire how he sidled along, keeping clear of secular
contacts. An illiterate encounter with a portt r's knot, or a
bread basket, would have quickly put to flight all the theology
I am master of, and have left me worse than indifferent to
the five points.
There is a class of street-readers, whom I can never con-
template without affection — the poor gentry, who, not having
wherewithal to buy or hire a book, filch a little learning at
the open stalls — the owner, with his hard eye, casting
envious looks at them all the while, and thinking when they
will have done. Venturing tenderly, page after page, ex-
pec'ing every moment when he shall interpose his interdict,
and yet unable to deny themselves the gratification, they
" snatch a fearful joy." Martin B ,' in this way, by daily
frasrmrnts, got through two volumes of Clarissa, when the
stall-keeper damped his laudable nmbition, by asking him
[' Martin Burney.]
206
The Old Margate Hoy
(it was in his younger days) whether he meant to purchase
the work. M. declares, that under no circumstance in his
hfe did he ever peruse a book with half the satisfaction
which he took in those uneasy snatches. A quaint poetess
of our day ' has moralised upon this subject in two very
touching but homely stanzas.
I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall.
And read, as he'd devour it all ;
Which when the stall-man did espy.
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
" You, Sir, you never buy a book,
Therelore in one you shall not look."
The boy pass'd slowly on, and with a sigh
He wish'd he never had been taughi to read,
Then of the old churl's books he should have had no need.
Of sufferings the poor have many,
Which never can the rich annoy :
I soon perceiv'd another boy.
Who look'd as if he had not any
Food, for that day at least — enjoy
The Slight of cold meat in a tavern larder.
This boy's case, then thought I, is surely harder,
Thus hungry, longing, ihus without a penny,
Beholding choice of dainty-dressed meat :
No wonder if he wish he ne'er had learn'd to eat.
THE OLD MARGATE HOY.
I AM fond of passing my vacation (I beheve I have said so
before) at one or other of the Universities. Next to these
my choice would fix me at some woody spot, such as the
neighbourhood of Henley affords in abundance, on the
banks of my beloved Thames. But somehow or other my
cousin contrives to wheedle me once in three or four
seasons to a watering-place. Old attachments cling to her
in spite of experience. We have been dull at Worth-
ing one summer, duller at Brighton another, dullest at
Eastbourn, a third, and are at this moment doing dreary
penance at — Hastings ! — and all because we were happy
many years ago for a brief week at Margate. That was our
first sea-side experiment, and many circumstances com-
['Mary Lamb.]
207
The Essays of Elia
bined to make it the most agreeable holyday of my life
We had neither of us seen the sea, and we had never been
from home so long together in company.
Can I forget thee, thou old Margate Hoy, with thy
weather-beaten, sun-burnt captain, and his rough ac-
commodations — ill-exchanged for the foppery and
fresh-water niceness of the modern steam packet ? To the
winds and waves thou committedst thy goodly freightage,
and didst ask no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling
cauldrons. With the gales of heaven thou wentest swim-
mingly ; or, when it was their pleasure, stoodest still with
sailor-like patience. Thy course was natural, not forced,
as in a hot-bed ; nor didst thou go poisoning the breath
of ocean with sulphureous smoke — a great sea-chiniaera,
chimneying and furnacing the deep ; or liker to that fire-
god parchmg up Scamander.
Can I forget thy honest, yet slender crew, with their coy
reluctant responses (yet to the suppression of anything
like contempt) to the raw questions, which we of the great
city would be ever and anon putting to them as to the
uses of this or that strange naval implement? 'Specially
can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou shade of
refuge between us and them, conciliating interpreter of
their skill to our simplicity, comfortable ambassador
between sea and land ! — whose sailor-trowsers did not
more convincingly assure thee to be an adopted denizen of
the former, than thy white cap and whiter apron over them,
with thy neat-fingered practice in thy culinary vocation,
bespoke thee to have been of inland nature heretofore —
a master cook of Eastcheap ? How busily didst thou ply
thy multifarious occupation, cook, mariner, attendant,
chamberlain : here, there, like another Ariel, flaming at
once about all parts of the deck, yet with kindlier ministra-
tion— not to assist the tempest, but, as if touched with a
kindred sense of our infirmities, to soothe the qualms
which that untried motion might haply raise in our crude
land-fancies. And when the o'er-washing billows drove
us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we had
stiff and blowing weather ) how did thy officious ministerings,
still catering for our comfort, with cards, and cordials, and
thy more cordial conversation, alleviate the closeness and
the confinement of thy else (truth to say) not very savoury,
nor very inviting, little cabin !
208
The Old Margate Hoy
With these additaments to boot, we bad en board a
fellow-passenger, whose discourse in verity might have
beguiled a longer voyage than we meditated, and have
ma^ie mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores.
He was a dark, Spanish-complexioned young man, re-
markably handsome, with an officer-like assurance, and an
insuppressible volubility of assertion. He was, in fact, the
greatest liar I had met with then, or since. Fie was none
of your hesitating, half story-tellers (a most painful descrip-
tion of mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and only
giving you as much as they see you can svallow at a time —
the nibbling pickpockets of your patience — but one who
committed downright, day-light depredations upon his
neighbour's faith. He did not stand shivering upon the
brink, but was a hearty, thorough-paced liar, and plunged
at once into the depths of your credulity. I partly believe,
he made pretty sure of his company. Not many rich, not
many wise, or learned, composed at that time the common
stowage of a Margate packet. We were, I am afraid, a set
of as unseasoned Londoners (let our enemies give it a
worse name ) as Aldermanbury, or Watling Street, at that
time of day could have supplied. There mi^ht be an
exception or two among us, but I scorn to make any invidi-
ous distinctions among such a jolly, companionable ship's
company, as those were whom I sailed with. Something
too must be conceded to the Genius Loci. Had the con-
fident fellow told us half the legends on land, which he
favoured us with on the other element, I flatter myself the
good sense of most of us would have revolted. But we
were in a new world, witli everything unfamiliar about us,
and the time and place disposed us to ihe reception of any
prodigious marvel whatsc^ever. Time has obliterated from
my memory much of his wild fablings ; and the rest would
appear but dull, as written, and to be read on shore. He
had been Aide-de-camp (among other rare accidents and
fortunes) to a Persian prince, and at one blow had stricken
off the head of the King of Carimania on horseback. He,
of course, married the Prince's daughter. I forget what
unlucky turn in the politics of that court, combining with
the loss of his consort, was the reason of his quitting Persia;
but with the rapidity of a magician, he transported himself,
along with his hearers, back to England, where we still
found him in the confidence of great ladies. There was
o 209
The Essays of Elia
some story of a Princess — Elizabeth, if I remember — having
intrusted to his care an extraordinary casket of jewels,
upon some extraordinary occasion — but, as I am not
certain of the name or circumstance at this distance of
time, I must leave it to the Royal daughters of England to
settle the honour among themselves in private. I cannot
call to mind half his pleasant wonders ; but I perfectly
remember, that in the course of his travels he had seen a
phoenix ; and he obligingly undeceived us of the vulgar
error, that there is but one of that species at a time,
assuring us that they were not uncommon in some parts
of Upper Egypt. Hitherto he had found the most implicit
listeners. His dreaming fancies had transported us beyond
the " ignorant present." But when (still hardying more
and more in his triumphs over our simplicity,) he went on
to affirm that he had actually sailed through the legs of the
Colossus at Rhodes, it really became necessary to make a
stand. And here I must do justice to the good sense and
intrepidity of one of our party, a youth, that had hitherto
been one of his most deferential auditors, who, from his
recent reading, made bold to assure the gentleman, that
there must be some mistake, as "the Colossus in question
had been destroyed long since ; " to whose opinion, de-
livered with all modesty our hero was obliging enough to
concede thus much, "the figure was indeed a little
damaged." This was the only opposition he met with, and
it did not at all seem to stagger him, for he proceeded
with his fables which the same youth appeared to swallow
with still more complacency than ever, — confirmed, as it
were, by the extreme candour of that concession. With
these prodigies he wheedled us on till we came in sight of
the Reculvers, which one of our own company (having
been the voyage before) immediately recognising, and
pointing out to us, was considered by us as no ordinary
seaman.
All this time sat upon the edge of the deck quite a
different character. It was a lad, apparently very poor,
very infirm, and very patient. His eye was ever on the
sea, with a smile ; and, if he caught now and then some
snatches of these wild legends, it was by accident, and they
seemed not to concern him. The waves to him whispered
more pleasant stories. He was as one, being with us, but
not of us. He heard the bell of dinner ring without
2IO
The Old Margate Hoy
stirring ; and when some of us pulled out our private stores
— our cold meat and our salads — he produced none, and
seemed to want none. Only a solitary biscuit he had laid
in ; provision for the one or two days and nights, to which
these vessels then were oftentimes obliged to prolong their
voyage. Upon a nearer acquaintance with him, which he
seemed neither to court nor decline, we learned that he
was going to Margate, with the hope of being admitted
into the Infirmary there for sea-bathing. His disease was
a scrofula, which appeared to have eaten all over him. He
expressed great hopes of a cure ; and when we asked him,
whether he had any friends where he was going, he replied,
"he had no friends."
These pleasant, and some mournful passages with the
first sight of the sea, co-operating with youth, and a sense
of holydays, and out-of-door adventure, to me that had
been pent up in populous cities for many months before, —
have left upon my mind the fragrance as of summer days
gone by, bequeathing nothing but their remembrance for
cold and wintry hours to chew upon.
Will it be thought a digression (it may spare some un-
welcome comparisons), if I endeavour to account for the
dissatisfaction which I have heard so many persons confess
to have felt (as I did myself feel in part on this occasion),
at the sight of the sea for the first time? I think the reason
usually given — referring to the incapacity of actual objects
for satisfying our preconceptions of them — scarcely goes
deep enough into the question. Let the same person see
a lion, an elephant, a mountain, for the first time in his
life, and he shall perhaps feel himself a little mortified.
The things do not fill up that space, which the idea of
them seemed to take up in his mind. But they have still
a correspondency to his first notion, and in time grow up
to it, so as to produce a very similar impression : enlarging
themselves (if I may say so) upon familiarity. But the
sea remains a disappointment. — Is it not, that in the latter
we had expected to behold (absurdly, I grant, but, I am
afraid, by the law of imagination unavoidably) not a
definite object, as those wild beasts, or that mountain corn-
passable by the eye, but all the sea at once, the commen-
surate ANTAGONIST OF THE EARTH ? I do UOt Say WC tell
ourselves so much, but the craving of the mind is to be
satisfied with nothing less. I will suppose the case of a
211
The Essays of Elia
young person of fifteen (as I then was) knowing nothing
of the sea, but from description. He comes to it for the
first time — all that he has been reading of it all his life,
znd. that the most enthusiastic part of life, — all he has
gathered from narratives of wandering seamen ; what he
has gained from true voyages, and what he cherishes as
credulously from romance and poetry ; crowding their
images, and exacting strange tributes from expectation. —
He thinks of the great deep, and of those who go down
unto it ; of its thousand isles, and of the vast continents it
washes ; of its receiving the mighty Plate, or Orellana, into
its bosom, without disturbance, or sense of augmentation ;
of Biscay swells, and the mariner
For many a day, and many a <]readful night,
Incessant, labouring round the stormy Cape ;
of fatal rocks, and the "still-vexed Bermoothes;" of great
whirlpools, and the water-spout; of sunken ships, and sum-
less treasures swallowed up in the unrestoring depths : of
fishes and quaint monsters, to which all that is terrible on
earth —
Be but as buggs to frighten babes withal.
Compared with the creatures in the sea's entral ;
of naked savages, and Juan Fernandez; of pearls, and
shells ; of coral beds, and of enchanted isles ; of mermaids'
grots —
I do not assert that in sober earnest he expects to be
shown all these wonders at once, but he is under the tyranny
of a mighty faculty, which haunts him with confu>,ed hints
and shadows of all these ; and when the actual object opens
first upon him, seen (in tame weather too most likely) from
our unroniantic coasts — a speck, a slip of sea-water, as it
shows to him — what can it prove but a very unsatisfying
and even diminutive entertainment ? Or if he has come to
it from the moulh of a river, was it much more than the
river widening ? and, even out of sight of land, what had
he but a flat watery horizon about him, nothing comparable
to the vast o'er-curtaining sky, his familiar object, seen
daily without dread or amazement ? — Who, in similar
circumstances, has not been tempted to exclaim with
Charoba, in the poem of Gebir,
Is this the mighty ocean ? is this all?
I love town, or country ; but this detestable Cinque Port
The Old Margate Hoy
is neither. I hate these scruijbed shoots, thrustine^ out
their starved foliage from between the horrid fissures of
dusty innutritious rocks ; which the amateur calls " verdure
to the edge of the sea." 1 require woods, and they show
me stunted coppices. I cry out for the water-brooks, and
pant for fresh streams, and inland murruurs. I cannot
stand all day on the naked beach, watching the capricious
hues of the sea, shifting like the colours of a dying mullet.
I am tired of looking out at the windows of ihis island-
prison. I would fain retire into the interior of my cage.
While I gaze upon the sea, 1 want to be on it, over it,
across it. It binds me in with chains, as of iron. My
thoughts are abroad. I should not so feel in Sraffordshire.
There is no home fur me here. There is no sense of home
at Hastings. It is a place of fugitive resort, an hetero-
geneous assemblage of sea-mews and stock-brokers,
Amphitrites of the town, and misses that coquet with the
Ocean. If it were what it was in its primitive shape, and
what it ought to have remained, a fair honest fishing-town,
and no more, it were something — with a few straggling
fishermen's huts scattered about, artless as its cliffs, and
with their materials filched from them, it vrere something.
I could abide to dwell with Meschek ; to assort with fisher-
swain;-, and smugglers. There are, or 1 dream there are,
many of this latter occupation here. Their faces become
the place. I like a smuggler. He is the only honest thief.
He robs nothing but the revenue, — an abstraction I never
greatly cared about. I could go out with them in their
mackarel boats, or about their less ostensible business,
Yvith some satisfaction. I can even tolerate those poor
victims to monotony, who from dav to day pace along the
beach, in endless progress and recurrence, to watch their
illicit countrymen — townsfolk or brethren perchance —
whistling to the sheathing and unsheathing of their cutlasses
(their only solace), who under the mild name of preventive
service, keep up a legitimated civil v/arfare in the deplorable
absence of a foreign one, to shov; their detestation of run
hoUands and zeal for old England. But it is the visitants from
town, that come here to say that they have been here, v.ith
no more relish of the sea than a pond perch, or a dace might
be supposed to have, that are my aversion. I feel like a
foolish dace in these regions, and have as little toleration
for myself here, as for them. What can they want here? if
213
The Essays of Elia
they had a true relish of the ocean, why have they brought
all this land luggage with them ? or why pitch their civilised
tents in the desert ? What mean these scanty book-rooms
— marine libraries as they entitle them — if the sea were, as
they would have us believe, a book " to read strange matter
in ? " what are their foolish concert-rooms, if they come, as
they would fain be thought to do, to listen to the music of
the waves? All is false and hollow pretension. They
come, because it is the fashion, and to spoil the nature of
the place. They are mostly, as I have said, stock-brokers ;
but I have watched the better sort of them — now and then,
an honest citizen (of the old stamp), in the simplicity of his
heart, shall bring down his wife and daughters, to taste the
sea breezes. I always know the date of their arrival. It is
easy to see it in their countenance. A day or two
they go wandering on the shingles, picking up cockle-shells,
and thinking them great things ; but, in a poor week,
imagination slackens : they begin to discover that cockles
produce no pearls, and then — O then ! — if I could interpret
for the pretty creatures, (I know they have not the courage
to confess it themselves) how gladly would they exchange
their sea-side rambles for a Sunday walk on the green-sward
of their accustomed Twickenham meadows !
I would ask of one of these sea-charmed emigrants, who
think they truly love the sea, with its wild usages, what
would their feelings be, if some of the unsophisticated
aborigines of this place, encouraged by their courteous
questionings here, should venture, on the faith of such
assured sympathy between them, to return the visit, and
come up to see — London. I must imagine them with
their fishing-tackle on their back, as we carry our town
necessaries. What a sensation would it cause in Lothbury ?
What vehement laughter would it not excite among
The daughters of Cheapside and wives of Lombard Street.
I am sure that no town-bred, or inland-born subjects,
can feel their true and natural nourishment at these sea-
places. Nature, where she does not mean us for mariners
and vagabonds, bids us stay at home. The salt foam seems
to nourish a spleen. I am not half so good-natured as by
the milder waters of my natural river. I would exchange
these sea-gulls for swans, and scud a swallow for ever about
the banks of Thamesis.
214
The Convalescent
THE CONVALESCENT.
A PRETTY severe fit of indisposition which, under the name
of a nervous fever, has made a prisoner of me for some weeks
past, and is but slowly leaving me, has reduced me to an
incapacity of reflecting upon any topic foreign to itself.
Expect no healthy conclusions from me this month, reader;
I can ofi'er you only sick men's dreams.
And truly the whole state of sickness is such ; for what
else is it but a magnificent dream for a man to lie a-bed,
and draw daylight curtains about him ; and, shutting out
the sun, to induce a total oblivion of all the works which
are going on under it? To become insensible to all the
operations of life, except the beatings of one feeble pulse ?
If there be a regal solitude, it is a sick bed. How the
patient lords it there ; what caprices he acts without
control! how king-like he sways his pillow — tumbling,
and tossing, and shifting, and lowering, and thumping, and
flatting, and moulding it, to the ever varying requisitions
of his throbbing temples.
He changes sides oftener than a politician. Now he lies
full length, then half-length, obliquely, transversely, head
and feet quite across the bed; and none accuses him of
tergiversation. Within, the four curtains he is absolute.
They are his Mare Clausum.
How sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man's self to
himself! he is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfish-
ness is inculcated upon him as his only duty. 'Tis the
Two Tables of the Law to him. He has nothing to think
of but how to get well. What passes out of doors, or
within them, so he hear not the jarring of them, affects him
not.
A little while ago he was greatly concerned in the event
of a law-suit, which was to be the making or the marring
of his dearest friend. He was to be seen trudging about
upon this man's errand to fifty quarters of the town at
once, jogging this witness, refreshing that solicitor. The
cause was to come on yesterday. He is absolutely as
indifferent to the decision, as if it were a question to be
tried at Pekin. Peradventure from some whispering, going
215
The Essays of Elia
on about the house, not intended for his hearing, he picks
up enough to make him understand, that things went cross-
grained in the Court yesterday, and his friend is ruined.
But the word "friend," and the word "ruin," disturb him
no more than so much jargon. He is not to think of any
thing but how to get better.
What a world of foreign cares are merged in that absorb-
ing consideration !
He has put on his strong armour of sickness, he is
wrapped in the callous hide of suffering, he keeps his
sympathy, like some curious vintage, under trusty lock and
key, for his own use only.
He lies pitying himself, honing and moaning to himself;
he yearneth over himself: his bowels are even melted within
him, to think what he suffers; he is not ashamed to weep
over himself.
He is for ever plotting how to do some good to himself;
studying littk stratagems and artificial alleviations.
He makes the most of himself; dividing himself, by an
allowable fiction, into as many distinct individuals, as he
hath sore and sorrowing members. Sometimes he meditates
— as of a thing apart from him — upon his poor aching head,
and that dull pain which, dozing or waking, lay in it all
the past night like a log, or palpable substance of pain, not
to be removed without opening the very skull, as it seemed,
to take it thence. Or he pities his long, clammy, attenuated
fingers. He compassionates himself all over ; and his bed
is a very discipline of humanity, and tender heart.
He is his own sympathiser; and instinctively feels that
none can so well perform that office for him. He cares for
fe\T spectators to his tragedy. Only that punctual face of
the old nurse pleases him, that announces his broths, and
his cordials. He likes it because it is so unmoved, and
because he can pour forth his feverish ejaculations before it
as unreservedly as to his bed-post.
To the world's business he is dead. He understands not
what the callings and occupations of mortals are ; only he
has a glimmering conceit of some such thing, when the
doctor makes his daily call : and even in the lines on that
busy face he reads no multiplicity of patients, but solely
conceives of himself as the sick man. To what other uneasy
couch the good man is hastening, ^.hen he slips out of his
chamber, fnMing up his thin douceur so carefully for fear
276
The Convalescent
of rustling — is no speculation which he can at present
entertain. He thinks only of the re.:ular return of the same
phenomenon at the same hour to-morrow.
Household rumours touch him not. Some faint murmur,
indicative of life going on within the house, soothes him,
while he knows not distinctly what it is. He is not to know
any thing, not to think of any thing. Servants gliding up
or down the distant staircase, treading as upon velvet, gently
keep his ear awake, so long as he troubles not himself
further than with some feeble guess at their errands. Exacter
knowledge would be a burthen to him : he can just endure
the pressure of conjecture. He opens his eye faintly at the
dull stroke of the muffled knocker, and closes it again without
asking " Who was it ? " He is flattered by a general notion
that inquiries are making after him, but he cares not to know
the name of the inquirer. In the general stillness, and awful
hush of the house, he lies in state, and feels his sovereignty.
To be sick is to enjoy monarchal prerogatives. Compare
the silent tread, and quiet ministry, almost by the eye only,
with which he is served — with the careless demeanour, the
unceremonious goings in and out (slapping of doors, or
leaving them open) of the very same attendants, when he is
getting a little better — and you will confess, that from the
bed of sickness (throne let me rather call it) to the elbow
chair of convalescence, is a fall from dignity, amounting to
& deposition.
How convalescence shrinks a man back to his pristine
stature ! where is now the space, which he occupied so
lately, in his own, in the family's eye ?
The scene of his regalities, his sick room, which was his
presence chamber, where he lay and acted his despotic-
fancies — how is it reduced to a common bed-room ! The
trimness of the very bed has something petty and unmear.ing
about it. It is made every day. How unlike to that wavy
many-furrowed, oceanic surface, which it presented so short
a time since, when to ma^e it was a service not to be thouglit
of at oftener than three or four day revolutions, when the
patient was with pain and grief to be lifted for a little while
out of it, to submit to the encroachments of unwelcome
neatness, and decencies which his shaken frame deprecated ;
then to be lifted into it again, for another three or four days'
respite, to flounder it out of shape again, while every fresh
furrow was a historical record of some shifting posture, some
217
The Essays of Elia
uneasy turning, some seeking fora little ease ; and the shrunken
skin scarce told a truer story than the crumpled coverlid.
Hushed are those mysterious sights — those groans — so
much more awful, while we knew not from what caverns of
vast hidden suffering they proceeded. The Lernean pangs
are quenched. The riddle of sickness is solved ; and
Fhiloctetes is become an ordinary personage.
Perhaps some relic of the sick man's dream of greatness
survives in the still lingering visitations of the medical
attendant. But how is he too changed with every thing
else ! Can this be he — this man of news — of chat — of
anecdote — of every thing but physic — can this be he, who
so lately came between the patient and his cruel enemy, as
on some solemn embassy from Nature, erecting herself into
a high mediating party ? — Pshaw ! 'tis some old woman.
Farewell with him all that made sickness pompous — the
spell that hushed the household — the desert-Uke stillness,
felt throughout its inmost chambers — the mute attendance
— the inquiry by looks — the still softer delicacies of self-
attention — the sole and single eye of distemper alonely fixed
upon itself — world-thoughts excluded — the man a world unto
himself — his own theatre —
What a speck is he dwindled into !
In this flat swamp of convalescence, left by the ebb of sick-
ness, yet far enough from the terra firma of established
health, your note, dear Editor, reached me, requesting — an
article. In Articulo Mortis, thought I ; but it is something
hard — and the quibble, wretched as it was, relieved me.
The summons, unseasonable as it appeared, seemed to Hnk
me on again to the petty businesses of life, which I had lost
sight of; a gentle call to activity, however trivial ; a whole-
some weaning from that preposterous dream of self-absorp-
tion— the puffy state of sickness — in which I confess to have
lain so long, insensible to the magazines and monarchies, of
the world alike ; to its laws and to its literature. The
hypochondriac flatus is subsiding; the acres, which in
imagination I had spread over — for the sick man swells in
the sole contemplation of his single sufferings, till he
becomes a Tityus to himself — are wasting to a span ; and
for the giant of self-importance, which I was so lately, you
have me once again in my natural pretensions — the lean
and meagre figure of your insignificant Essayist.
218
Sanity of True Genius
SANITY OF TRUE GENIUS.
So far from the position holding true, that great wit (or genius,
in our modern way of speaking) has a necessary alliance
with insanity, the greatest wits, on the contrary, will ever be
found to be the sanest writers. It is impossible for the
mind to conceive a mad Shakspeare. The greatness of wit,
by which the poetic talent is here chiefly to be understood,
manifests itself in the admirable balance of all the faculties.
Madness is the disproportionate straining or excess of any
one of them. "So strong a wit," says Cowley, speaking of
a poetical friend,
" — did Nature to him frame,
As all things but his judgment overcame ;
His judgment like the heavenly moon did show,
Tempering that mighty sea below."
The ground of the mistake is, that men, finding in the
raptures of the higher poetry a condition of exaltation, to
which they have no parallel in their own experience,
besides the spurious resemblance of it in dreams and fevers,
impute a state of dreaminess and fever to the poet. But
the true poet dreams being awake. He is not possessed
by his subject, but has dominion over it. In the groves of
Eden he walks familiar as in his native paths. He ascends
the empyrean heaven, and is not intoxicated. He treads
the burning marl without dismay; he wins his flight without
self-loss through realms of chaos "and old night." Or if,
abandoning himself to that severer chaos of a " human
mind untuned," he is content awhile to be mad with Lear,
or to hate mankind (a sort of madness) with Timon, neither
is that madness, nor this misanthropy, so unchecked, but
that, — never letting the reins of reason wholly go, while
most he seems to do so, — he has his better genius still
whispering at his ear, with the good servant Kent suggest-
ing saner counsels, or with the honest steward Flavius
recommending kindlier resolutions. WheFe he seems most
to recede from humanity, he will be found the truest to it.
From beyond the scope of Nature if he summon possible
existences, he subjugates them to the law of her consistency.
He is beautifully loyal to that sovereign directress, even
219
The Essays of Elia
when he appears most to betray and desert her. His ideal
tribes submit to policy ; his very monsters are tamed to his
hand, even as that wild sea-brood, shepherded by Proteus.
He tames and he clothes them with attributes of flesh and
blood, till they wonder at themselves, like Indian Islanders
forced to submit to European vesture. Caliban, the
Witches, are as true to the laws of their own nature (ours
with a difference), as Othello, Hamlet, and Macbeth.
Herein the great and the little wits are differenced ; that if
the latter wander ever so little from nature or actual exist-
ence, they lose themselves, and their readers. Their
phantoms are lawless ; their visions nightmares. They do
not create, which implies shaping and consistency. Their
imaginations are not active — for to be active is to call
something into act and form — but passive, as men in sick
dreams. For the super-natural, or something super-added
to what we know of nature, they give you the plainly non-
natural. And if this were all, and that these mental
hallucinations were discoverable only in the treatment of
subjects out of nature, or transcending it, the judgment
might with some plea be pardoned if it ran riot, and a little
wantonised : but even in the describing of real and every-
day life, tnat which is before their eyes, one of these lesser
wits shall more deviate from nature — show more of that
inconsequence, which has a natural alliance with frenzy, —
than a great genius in his " maddest fits," as Wither some-
where calls them. We appeal to any one that is acquainted
with the common run of Lane's novels, — as they existed
some twenty or thirty years back,— those scanty intellectual
viands of the whole female reading public, till a happier
genius arose, and expelled for ever the innulritious phantoms,
— whether he has not found his brain more " betossed," his
memory more puzzled, his sense of when and where more
confounded, among the improbable events, the incoherent
incidents, the inconsistent characters, or no-characters, of
some third-rate love intrigue — where the persons shall be
a Lord Glendamour and a Miss Rivers, and the scene only
alternate between Bath and Bond Street — a more bewilder-
ing dreaminess induced upon him, than he has felt wander-
ing over all the fairy grcjunds of Spenser. In the
productions we refer to, nothing but names and places is
familiar ; the persons are neither of this world nor of any
other conceivable one ; an endless string of activities with-
220
Sanity of True Genius
out purpose, or purposes destitute of motive : — we meet
phantoms in our known walks; faniasques only christened.
In the ))oet we iiave names which announce tiction ; and
we have absohitely no place at all, for the things and
persons of the Fairy Queen prate not of their "whereabout."
But in their inner nature, and the law of their speech and
actions, we are at home and upon acquainted ground. The
one turns life into a dream ; the other to the wildest
dreams gives the sobrieties of every-day occurrences. By
what subtile art of tracing the mental processes it is effected,
we are not philosophers enough to explain, but in that
wonderful episode of the cave of Mammon, in which the
Money God appears first in the lowest form of a miser, is
then a worker of metals, and becomes the god of all the
treasures of the world : and has a daughter, Ambition,
before whom all the world kneels for favours — with the
Hesperian fruit, the waters of Tantalus, with Pilate washing
his hands vainly, but not impertinently, in the same stream
— that we should be at one moment in the cave of an old
hoarder of treasures, at the next at the forge of the Cyclops,
in a palace and yet in hell, all at once, with the shifting
mutations of the most rambling dream, and our judgment
yet all the time awake, and neither able nor willing to
detect the fallacy, — is a proof of that hidden sanity which
still guides the poet in the widest seeming-aberrations.
It is not enough to say that the whole episode is a copy
of the mind's conceptions in sleep; it is, in some sort —
but what a copy ! Let the most romantic of us, that has
been entertained all night with the spectacle of some wild
and magnificent vision, recombine it in the morning, and
try it by his waking judgment. That which appeared so
shifting, and yet so coherent, while that faculty was passive,
when it comes under cool examination, shall appear so
reasonless and so unlinked, that we are ashamed to have
been so deluded ; and to have taken, though but in sleep,
a monster for a god. But the transitions in this episode
are every whit as violent as in the most extravagant dream,
and yet the waking judgment ratifies them.
The Essays of Elia
CAPTAIN JACKSON.
Among the deaths in our obituary for this month, I observe
with concern, "At his cottage on the Bath Road, Captain
Jackson." The name and the attribution are common
enough ; but a feehng Hke reproach persuades me, that this
could have been no other in fact than my dear old friend,
who some five-and-twenty years ago rented a tenement,
which he was pleased to dignify with the appellation here
used, about a mile from Westbourn Green. Alack, how
good men, and the good turns they do us, slide out of
memory, and are recalled but by the surprise of some such
sad memento as that which now lies before us !
He whom I mean was a retired half-pay officer, with a
wife and two grown-up daughters, whom he maintained with
the port and notions of gentlewomen upon that slender pro-
fessional allowance. Comely girls they were too.
And was I in danger of forgetting this man ? — his cheer-
ful suppers — the noble tone of hospitaHty, when first you
set your foot in the cottage — the anxious ministerings about
you, where little or nothing (God knows) was to be
ministered. — Althea's horn in a poor platter — the power of
self-enchantment, by which, in his magnificent wishes to
entertain you, he multiplied his means to bounties.
You saw with your bodily eyes indeed what seemed a
bare scrag — cold savings from the foregone meal— remnant
hardly sufficient to send a mendicant from the door con-
tented. But in the copious will — the revelling imagination
of your host — the " mind, the mind, Master Shallow," whole
beeves were spread before you — hecatombs — no end ap-
peared to the profusion.
It was the widow's cruse — the loaves and fishes ; carving
could not lessen nor helping diminish it — the stamina were
left — the elemental bone still flourished, divested of its
accidents.
"Let us live while we can," methinks I hear the open-
handed creature exclaim ; " while we have, let us not
want;" "here is plenty left;" "want for nothing" — with
many more such hospitable sayings, the spurs of appetite,
and old concomttants of smoking boards, and feast-oppressed
charges. Then sliding a slender ratio of Single Gloucester
222
Captain Jackson
upon his wife's plate, or the daughters', he would convey
the remnant rind into his own, with a merry quirk of " the
nearer the bone," &c., and declaring that he universally
preferred the outside. For we had our table distinctions,
you are to know, and some of us in a manner sate above
the salt. None but his guest or guests dreamed of tasting
flesh luxuries at night, the fragments were verh hospitibus
sacra. But of one thing or another there was always
enough, and leavings : only he would sometimes finish the
remainder crust, to show that he wished no savings.
Wine we had none ; nor, except on very rare occasions,
spirits ; but the sensation of wine was there. Some thin
kind of ale I remember — " British beverage," he would say.
"Push about, my boys;" "Drink to your sweethearts,
girls." At every meagre draught a toast must ensue, or a
song. All the forms of good liquor were there, with none
of the effects wanting. Shut your eyes, and you would
swear a capacious bowl of punch was foaming in the centre,
with beams of generous Port or Madeira radiating to it from
each of the table corners. You got flustered without know-
ing whence ; tipsy upon words ; and reeled under the potency
of his unperforming Bacchanalian encouragements.
We had our songs — "Why, Soldiers, Why" — and the
"British Grenadiers" — in which last we were all obliged to
bear chorus. Both the daughters sang. Their proficiency
was a nightly theme — the masters he had given them — the
"no-expense" which he spared to accomplish them in a
science " so necessary to young women." But then — they
could not sing "without the instrument."
Sacred, and, by me, never-to-be-violated, Secrets of
Poverty ! Should I disclose your honest aims at grandeur,
your makeshift efforts of magnificence? Sleep, sleep, with
all thy broken keys, if one of the bunch be extant ;
thrummed by a thousand ancestral thumbs ; dear, cracked,
spinnet of dearer Louisa ! Without mention of mine, be
dumb, thou thin accompanier of her thinner warble ! A
veil be spread over the dear delighted face of the well-
deluded father, who now haply listening to cherubic notes,
scarce feels sincerer pleasure than when she awakened thy
time-shaken chords responsive to the twitterings of that
slender image of a voice.
We were not without our literary talk either. It did not
extend far, but as far as it went, it was good. It was
223
The Essays of Elia
bottomed well ; had good grounds to go upon. In the
cottage was a room, which tradition authenticated to have
been the same in which Glover, in his occasional retire-
ments, had penned the greater part of his Leonidas. This
circumstance was nightly quoted, though none of the
present inmates, that I could discover, appeared ever to
have met with the poem in question. But that was no
matter. Glover had written there, and the anecdote was
pressed into the account of the family importance- It
diffused a learned air through the apartment, the little side
casement of which (the poet's study window), opening upon
a superb view as far as the pretty spire of Harrow, over
domains and patrimonial acres, not a rood nor square yard
whereof our host could call his own, yet gave occasion to
an immoderate expansion of — vanity shall I call it? — in his
bosom, as he showed them in a glowing summer evening.
It was all his, he took it all in, and communicated rich
portions of it to his guests. It was a part of his largess, his
hospitality ; it was going over his grounds ; he was lord for
the time of showing them, and you the implicit lookers-up
to his magnificence.
He was a juggler, who threw mists before your eyes — you
had no time to detect his fallacies. He would say, " Hand
me the silver sugar tongs ; " and before you could discover
that it was a single spoon, and thd^t plated, he would disturb
and captivate your imagination by a misnomer of " the urn "
for a tea kettle ; or hy calling a homely bench a sofa. Rich
men direct you to their furniture, poor ones divert you from
it ; he neither did one nor the other, but by simply assum-
ing that every thing was handsome about him, you were
positively at a demur what you did, or did not see, at the
cottage. With nothing to live on, he seemed to live on
every thing. He had a stock of wealth in his mind ; not
that which is properly termed Content, for in truth he was
not to be cotitained at all, but overflowed all bounds by the
force of a magnificent self-delusion.
Enthusiasm is catching ; and even his wife, a sober native
of North Britain, who generally saw things more as they
were, was not proof against the continual collision of his
credulity. Her daughters were rational and discreet young
women; in the main, perhaps, not insensible to their true
circumstances. I have seen them assume a thoughtful air
at times. But such was the preponderating opulence of his
224
Captain Jackson
fancy, that I am persuaded, not for any half hour together
did they ever look their own prospects fairly in the face.
There was no resisting the vortex of his temperament. His
riotous imagination conjured up handsome settlements
before their eyes, which kept them up in the eye of the
world too, and seem at last to have realised themselves ; for
they both have married since, I am told, more than re-
spectably.
It is long since, and my memory waxes dim on some
subjects, or I should wish to convey some notion of the
manner in which the pleasant creature described the circum-
stances of his own wedding-day. I faintly remember some-
thing of a chaise and four, in which he made his entry into
Glasgow on that morning to fetch the bride home, or carry
her thither. I forget which. It so completely made out the
stanza of the old ballad —
When we came down through Glasgow town,
We were a comely sight to see ;
My love was clad in black velvet,
And I myself in cramasie.
I suppose it was the only occasion, upon which his own
actual splendour at all corresponded with the world's
notions on that subject. In homely cart, or travelling
caravan, by whatever humble vehicle they chanced to be
transported in less prosperous days, the ride 'hr^ugh
Glasgow came back upon his fancy, not as a humiliating
contrast, but as a fair occasion for reverting to that one
day's state. It seemed an " equipage etern " from which
no piiwer of fate or fortune, once mounted, had power
thereafter to dislodge him.
There is some merit in putting a handsome face upon
indigent circumstances. To bully and swagger away the
sense of them before strangers, may not be always dis-
commendable. Tibhs, and Bobadil, even when detected,
have more of our admiration than contempt. But for a
man to put the cheat upon himself; to play the Bobadil at
home ; and, steeped in poverty up to the lips, to fancy
himself all the while chin-deep in riches, is a strain of con-
stitutional philosophy, and a masterv over fortune, which
was reserved for ray old friend Captain Jackson.
22$
The Essays of Elia
THE SUPERANNUATED MAN
Sera tamen respexit
Libertas. ViRGlL.
A Clerk I was in London gay.
O'Keefb,
If peradventure, Reader, it has been thy lot to waste the
golden \ears of thy life — thy shining youth — in the irksome
continement of an office; to have thy prison days prolonged
through middle age down to decrepitude and silver hairs,
without hope of release or respite ; to have lived to forget
that there are such things as holydays, or to remember
them but as the prerogatives of childhood; then, and then
only, vvill you be able to appreciate my deliverance.
It is now six and thirty years since I took my seat at the
desk in Mincing Lane. Melancholy was the transition at
fourteen from the abundant playtime, and the frequently
intervening vacations of school days, to the eight, nine, and
sometimes ten hours' a-day attendance at a counting-house.
But time partially reconciles us to anything. I gradually
became content — doggedly content, as wild animals in
ca^es.
It is true I had my Sundays to myself; but Sundays,
admirable as the institution of them is for purposes of
worship, are for that very reason the very worst adapted for
days of unbending and recreation. In particular, there is a
gloom for me attendant upon a city Sunday, a weight in
the air. I miss the cheerful cries of London, the music,
and the ballad-singers — the buzz and stirring murmur of
the streets. Those eternal bells depress me. The closed
shops repel me. Prints, pictures, all the glittering and
endless succession of knacks and gewgaws, and ostenta-
tiously disjilayed wares of tradesmen, which make a week-
day saunter through the less busy parts of the metropolis
so deliijhtful — are shut out. No book-stalls deliciously to
idle over — No busy faces to recreate the idle man who
contemplates them ever passing by — the very face of
business a charm by contrast to his temporary relaxation
from it. Nothing to be seen but unhappy countenances —
or half-happy at best — of emancipated 'prentices and little
226
The Superannuated Man
tradesfolks, with here and there a servant maid that hasgoi
leave to go out, who, slaving all the week, with the habit
has lost almost the capacity of enjoying a free hour; and
livelily expressing the hollowness of a day's pleasuring.
The very strollers in the fields on that day looked anything
but comfortable.
But besides Sundays I had a day at Easter, and a day at
Christmas, with a full week in the summer to go and air
myself in my native fields of Hertfordshire. This last was
a great indulgence ; and the prospect of its recurrence, I
believe, alone kept me up through the year, and made my
durance tolerable. But when the week came round, did
the glittering phantom of the distance keep touch with
me? or rather was it not a series of seven uneasy days,
spent in restless pursuit of pleasure, and a wearisome
anxiety to find out how to make the most of them ?
Where was the quiet, where the promised rest? Before I
had a taste of it, it was vanished. I was at the desk again,
counting upon the fifty-one tedious weeks that must in-
tervene before such another snatch would come. Still the
prospect of its coming threw something of an illumination
upon the darker side of my captivity. Without it, as I
have said, I could scarcely have sustained my thraldom.
Independently of the rigours of attendance, I have ever
been haunted with a sense (perhaps a mere caprice) of
incapacity for business. This, during my latter years, had
increased to such a degree, that it was visible in all the lines
of my countenance. My health and my good spirits
flagged. I had perpetually a dread of some crisis, to which
I should be found unequal. Besides my daylight servitude,
I served over again all night in my sleep, and would awake
with terrors of imaginary false entries, errors in my accounts,
and the like. I was fifty years of age, and no prospect of
emancipation presented itself. I had grown to my desk, as
it were ; and the wood had entered into my soul.
My fellows in the office would sometimes rally me upon
the trouble legible in my countenance ; but I did not know
that it had raised the suspicions of any of my employers,
when on the 5th of last month, a day ever to be remembered
by me, L , the junior partner in the firm, calling me on
one side, directly taxed me with my bad looks, and frankly
inquired the cause of them. So taxed, I honestly made
confession of my infirmity, and added that I was afraid I
227
The Essays of Elia
should eventually be obliged to resign his service. He
spoke some words of course to hearten me, and there the
matter rested. A whole week I remained labouring under
the impression that I had acted imprudently in my dis-
closure ; that I had foolishly given a handle against myself,
and had been anticipating my own dismissal. A week
passed in this manner, the most anxious one, I verily believe,
in my whole life, when on the evening of the 12th of April,
just as I was about quitting my desk to go home (it might be
about tight o'clock) I received an awful summons to attend
the presence of the whole assembled firm in the formidable
back parlour. I thought now my time is surely come, I
have done for myself, I am going to be told that they have
no longer occasion for me. L , I could see, smiled at
the terror I was in, which was a little relief to me, —
when to my utter astonishment B , the eldest partner,
began a formal harangue to me on the length of my services,
my very meritorious conduct during the whole of the time
(the deuce, thought I, how did he find out that? I protest
1 never had the confidence to think as much). He went
on to descant on the expediency of retiring at a certain time
of life (how my heart panted !), and asking me a few
questions as to the amount of my own property, of which I
have a little, ended with a proposal, to which his three
partners nodded a grave assent, tliat I should accept from
the house, which I had served so well, a pension for life
to the amount of two-thirds of my accustomed salary — a
magnificent offer ! I do not k)iow what I answered
between surprise and gratitude, but it was ui'derstood that
I accepted their proposal, and I was told that I was free
from that hour to leave their service. I stammered out a
bow, and at just ten minutes after eight I went home — for
ever. This noble benefit — gratitude forbids me to conceal
their names — I owe to the kindness of the most munificent
firm in the world — the house of Boldero, Merrywealher,
Bosanquet, and Lacy.
Esto perpe.tua I
For the first day or two I felt stunned, overwhelmed. I
could only apprehend my felicity ; I was too confused to
taste it sincerely. I wandered about, thinking I was happy,
and knowing that I was not. I was in the condition of a
prisoner in the Old Bastile, suddenly let loose after a forty
The Superannuated Man
years' confinement. I could scarce trust myself with my-
self. It was like passing out of Time into Eternity — for it
is a sort of Eternity for a man to have his Time all to him-
self. It seemed to me that I had more time on my hands
than I could ever manage. From a poor man, poor in
Time, I was suddenly lifted up into a vast revenue ; I could
see no end of my possessions ; I wanted some steward, or
judicious bailiff, to manage my estates in Time for me.
And here let me caution persons grown old in active
business, not lightly, nor without weighing their own re-
sources, to forego their customary employment all at once,
for there may be danger in it. I feel it by myself, but I
know that my resources are sufficient ; and now that those
first giddy raptures have subsided, I have a quiet home-
feeling of the blessedness of my condition. I am in no
hurry. Having all holidays, I am as though I had none
If Time hung heavy upon me, I could walk it away ; but I
do 7tpt walk all day long, as I used to do in those old
transient holidays, thirty miles a day, to make the most of
them. If Time were troublesome, I could read it away,
but I do not read in that violent measure, with which,
having no Time my own but candlelight Time, I used to
weary out my head and eye-sight in by-gone winters. I
v.alk, read, or scribble (as now) just when the fit seizes rne.
I no longer hunt after pleasure ; I let it come to me. I am
like the man
-that's born, and has his years come to him,
In some green desert.
"Years," you will say; "what is this superannuated
simpleton calculating upon ? He has already told us he is
past fifty."
I have indeed lived nominally fifty years, but deduct out
of them the hours which I have lived to other people, and
not to myself, and you will find me still a young fellow.
For that is the only true Time, which a man can properly
call his own, that which he has all to himself; the rest,
though in some sense he may be said to live it, is other
people's time, not his. The remnant of my poor days,
long or short, is at least multiplied for me threefold. My
ten next years, if I stretch so far, will be as long as any pre-
ceding thirty. 'Tis a fair rule-of-thr^ sum.
Among the strange fantasies which beset me at the coni
220
The Essays of Elia
mencement of my freedom, and of which all traces are not
yet gone, one was, that a vast tract of time had intervened
since I quitted the Counting House. I could not conceive
of it as an affair of yesterday. The partners, and the clerks
with whom I had for so many years, and for so many hours
in each day of the year being so closely associated — being
suddenly removed from them — they seemed as dead to me.
There is a fine passage, which may serve to illustrate this
fancy, in a Tragedy, by Sir Robert Howard, speaking of a
friend's death : —
-'Twas but just now he went away ;
I have not since had time to shed a tear ;
And yet the distance does the same appear
As if he had been a thousand years from me.
Time takes no measure in Eternity.
To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to go
among them once or twice since ; to visit my old desk-
fellows — my co-brethren of the quill — that I had left below
in the state militant. Not all the kindness with which they
received me could quite restore to me that pleasant
familiarity, which I had heretofore enjoyed among them.
We cracked some of our old jokes, but methought they
went off but faintly. My old desk ; the peg where I hung
my hat, were appropriated to another. I knew it must be,
but I could not take it kindly. D 1 take me if I did
not feel some remorse — beast, if I had not, — at quitting my
old compeers, the faithful partners of my toils for six and
thirty years, that smoothed for me with their jokes and
conundrums the ruggedness of my professional road. Had
it been so rugged then after all? or was I a coward simply?
Well, it is too late to repent ; and I also know, that these
suggestions are a common fallacy of the mind on such
occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently
broken the bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous.
I shall be some time before I get quite reconciled to the
separation. Farewell, old cronies, yet not for long, for
again and again I will come among ye, if I shall have your
leave. Farewell, Ch , dry, sarcastic, and friendly !
Do , mild, slow to move, and gentlemanly ! PI ,
officious to do, and to volunteer, good services ! — and thou,
thou dreary pile, fit mansion for a Gresham or a Whittington
of old stately House of Merchants ; with thy labyrinthine
230
The Superannuated Man
passages, and light-excluding, pent-up offices, where candles
for one half the year supplied the place of the sun's light ;
unhealthy contributor to my weal, stern fosterer of my
living, farewell ! In thee remain, and not in the obscure
collection of some wandering bookseller, my " works ! "
There let them rest, as I do from my labours, piled on thy
massy shelves, more MSS. in folio than ever Aquinas left,
and full as useful ! My mantle I bequeath among ye.
A fortnight has passed since the date of my first com-
munication. At that period I was approaching to tranquillity,
but had not reached it. I boasted of a caim indeed, but
it was comparative only. Something of the first flutter was
left ; an unsettling sense of novelty ; the dazzle to weak eyes
of unaccustomed light. I missed my old chains, forsooth,
as if they had been some necessary part of my apparel. I
was a poor Carthusian, from strict cellular discipline
suddenly by some revolution returned upon the world. I
am now as if I had never been other than my own master.
It is natural to me to go where I please, to do what I please.
I find myself at eleven o'clock in the day in Bond Street,
and it seems to me that I have been sauntering there at
that very hour for years past. I digress into Soho, to
explore a book-stall. Methinks I have been thirty
years a collector. There is nothing strange nor new
in it. I find myself before a fine picture in the morning.
Was it ever otherwise? What is become of Fish Street
Hill? Where is Fenchurch Street? Stones of old
Mincing Lane which I have worn with my daily pilgrimage
for six and thirty years, to the footsteps of what toil-worn
clerk are your everlasting flints now vocal ? I indent the
gayer flags of Pall Mall. It is 'Change time, and I am
strangely among the Elgin marbles. It was no hyperbole
when I ventured to compare the change in my condition to
a passing into another world. Time stands still in a
manner to me. I have lost all distinction of season. I do
not know the day of the week, or of the month. Each day
used to be individually felt by me in its reference to the
foreign post days; in its distance from, or propinquity to
the next Sunday. I had my Wednesday feelings, my
Saturday nights' sensations. The genius of each day was
upon me distinctly during the whole of it, affecting my
appetite, spirits, &c. The phantom of the next day, with
the dreary five to follow, sate as a load upon my poor
231
The Essays of Elia
Sabbath recreations. What charm has washed the Ethiop
white? What is gone of Black Monday? All days are
the same. Sunday itself — that unfortunate failure of a
holiday as it too often proved, what with my sense of its
fugitiveness, and over-care to get the greatest quantity of
pleasure out of it — is melted down into a week day. I can
spare to go to church now, without grudging the huge
cantle which it used to seem to cut out of the holiday. I
have Time for everything. 1 can visit a sick friend. I can in-
terrupt the man of much occupation when he is busiest. I
can insult over him with an invitation to take a day's pleasure
with me to Windsor this fine May-morning. It is Lucretian
pleasure to beho'.d the poor drudges, whom I have left
behind in the world, carking and caring ; like horses in a
mill, drudging on in the same eternal round — and what is
it all for? A man can never have too much Time to
himself, nor too little to do. Had I a little son, I would
christen him nothing-to-do; he should do nothing. Man,
I verily believe, is out of his element as long as he is
operative. I am altogether for the life contemplative.
Will no kindly earthquake come and swallow up those
accursed cotton mills ? Take me that lumber of a desk
there, and bowl it down
As low as to the fiends.
1 am no longer ***** *^ clerk to the firm of, &c.
I am Retired Leisure. I am to be met with in trim gardens.
I am already come to be known by my vacant face and
careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace nor with
any settled purpose. I walk about ; not to and from.
They tell me, a certain cum dignitate air, that has been
buried so long with my other good parts, has begun to
shoot forth in my person. I grow into gentility per-
ceptibly. When I take up a newspaper it is to read the
state of the opera. Opus operaiutn est. I have done all
that I came into this world to do. I have worked task-
work, and have the rest of the day to myself.
232
The Genteel Style in Writing
THE GENTEEL STYLE IN WRITING
It is an ordinary criticism, that my Lord Shaftesbury, and
Sir William Temple, are models of the genteel style in
writing. We should prefer saying — of the lordly, and the
gentlemanly. Nothing can be more unlike, than the
inflated finical rhapsodies of Shaftesbury and the plain
natural chit-chat of Temple. The man of rank is discernible
in both writers ; but in the one it is only insinuated grace-
fully, in the other it stands out offensively. The peer seems
to have written with his coronet on, and his Earl's mantle
before him ; the commoner in his elbow chair and undress.
What can be more pleasant than the way in which the
retired statesman peeps out in his essays, penned by the
latter in his delightful retreat at Shene ? They scent of
Nimeguen, and the Hague. Scarce an authority is quoted
under an ambassador. Don Francisco de Melo, a
" Portugal Envoy in England," tells him it was frequent
in his country for men, spent with age and other decays,
so as they could not hope for above a year or two of life,
to ship themselves away in a Brazil fleet, and after their
arrival there to go on a great length, sometimes of twenty
or thirty years, or more, by the force of that vigour they
recovered with that remove. "Whether such an effect
(Temple beautifully adds) might grow from the air, or the
fruits of that climate, or by approaching nearer the sun,
which is the fountain of light and heat, when their natural
heat was so far decayed : or whether the piecing out of an
old man's life were worth the pains, I cannot tell : perhaps
the play is not worth the candle." — Monsieur Pompone,
" French ambassador in his (Sir William's) time at the
Hague," certifies him, that in his life he had never heard of
any man in France that arrived at a hundred years of age ;
a limitation of life which the old gentleman imputes to the
excellence of their climate, giving them such a liveliness of
temper and humour, as disposes them to more pleasures of
all kinds than in other countries ; and moralises upon the
matter very sensibly. The " late Robert Earl of Leicester "
furnishes him with a story of a Countess of Desmond,
married out of England in Edward the Fourth's time, and
who lived far in King James's reign. I'he " same noble
233
The Essays of Elia
person " gives him an account, how such a year^ in the
same reign, there went about the country a set of morrice-
dancers, composed of ten men who danced, a Maid Marian,
and a tabor and pipe ; and how these twelve, one with
another, made up twelve hundred years. "It was not so
much (says Temple) that so many in one small county
(Hertfordshire) should Uve to that age, as that they should
be in vigour and in humour to travel and to dance."
Monsieur Zulichem, one of his "colleagues at the Hague,"
informs him of a cure for the gout ; which is confirmed
by anottier " Envoy," Monsieur Serinchamps, in that town,
who had tried it. — Old Prince Maurice of Nassau recom-
mends to him the use of hammocks in that comp'aint ;
having been allured to sleep, while suffering under it himself,
by the " constant motion or swinging of those airy beds."
Count Egmont, and the Rhinegrave who " was killed last
summer before Maestricht," impart to him their experiences
But the rank of the writer is never more innocently dis-
closed, than where he takes for granted the compliments
paid by foreigners to his fruit trees. For the taste and
perfection of what we esteem the best, he can truly say,
that the French, who have eaten his peaches and grapes at
Shene in no very ill year, have generally concluded that the
last are as good as any they have eaten in France on this
side Fontainbleau ; and the first as good as any they have
eat in Gascony. Italians have agreed his white figs to be
as good as any of that sort in Italy, which is the earlier
kind of white fig there ; for in the latter kind and
the blue, we cannot come near the warm climates, no
more than in the Frontignac or Muscat grape. His orange-
trees too, are as large as any he saw when he was young in
France, except those in Fontainbleau ; or what he has seen
since in the Low Countries, except some very old ones of
the Prince of Orange's. Of grapes he had the honour of
bringing over four sorts into England, which he emunerates,
and supposes that they are all by this time pretty common
among some gardeners in his neighbourhood, as well as
several persons of quality ; for he ever thought all things of
this kind " the commoner they are made the better." The
garden pedantry with which he asserts that 'tis to little
purpose to plant any of the best fruits, as peaches or grapes,
hardly, he doubts, beyond Northamptonshire at the furthest
northwards; and praises the "Bishop of Munster at
234
The Genteel Style in Writing
Cosevelt," for attempting nothing beyond cherries in that
cold climate; is equally pleasant and in character. " I may
perhaps ' (he thus ends his sweet Garden Essay with a
passage worthy of Cowley) *' be allowed to know something
of this trade, since I have so long allowed myself to be good
for nothing else, which few men will do, or enjoy their
gardens, without often looking abroad to see how other
matters play, what motions in the state, and what invitations
they may hope for into other scenes. For my own part, as
the country life, and this part of it more particularly, were
the inclination of my youth itself, so they are the pleasure
of my age ; and 1 can truly say that, among many great
employments that have fallen to my share, I have never
asked or sought for any of them, but have often endeavoured
to escape from them, into the ease and freedom of a private
scene, where a man may go his own way and his own pace,
in the common paths and circles of life. The measure of
choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen,
which I thank God has befallen me ; and though among the
follies of my life, building and planting have not been the
least, and have cost me more than I have the confidence to
own ; yet they have been fully recompensed by the sweet-
ness and satisfaction of this retreat, where, since my resolu-
tion taken of never entering again into any public employ-
ments, I have passed five years without ever once going to
town, though I am almost in sight of it, and have a house
there always ready to receive me. Nor has this been any
sort of affectation, as some have thought it, but a mere want
of desire or humour to make so small a remove ; for when I
am in this corner, I can truly say with Horace, Me quoties
reficit, ^s'c.
" Me, when the cold Digentian stream revives,
What does my friend believe I think or ask ?
Let me yet less possess, so I may live,
Whate'er of life remains, unto myself.
May I have books enough ; and one year's store,
Not to depend upon each doubtful hour :
This is enough of mighty Jove to pray,
Who, as he pleases, gives and takes away."
The writings of Temple are, in general, after this easy
copy. On one occasion, indeed, his wit, which was mostly
subordinate to nature and tenderness, has seduced him into
a string of felicitous antitheses : which, it is obvious to
remark, have been a model to Addison and succeeding
235
The Essays of Elia
essayists. "Who would not be covetous, and with reason,"
he says, "if health could be purchased with gold? who not
ambitious, if it were at the command of power, or restored
by honour? but, alas ! a white staff will not help gouty feet
to walk better than a common cane ; nor a blue riband bind
up a wound so well as a fillet. The glitter of gold, or of
diamonds, will but hurt sore eyes instead of curing them ;
and an aching head will be no more eased by wearing a
crown, than a common nightcap." In a far better style,
and more accordant with his own humour of plainness, are
the concluding sentences of his " Discourse upon Poetry."
Temple took a pari in the controversy about the ancient
and the modern learning ; and, with that partiality so
natural and so graceful in an old man, whose state engage-
ments had left him little leisure to look into modern
productions, while his retirement gave him occasion to
look back upon the classic studies of his youth — decided
in favour of the latter. "Certain it is," he says, "that,
whether the fierceness of the Gothic humours, or noise of
their perpetual wars, frighted it away, or that the unequal
mixture of the modern languages would not bear it — the
great heights and excellency both of poetry and music fell
with the Roman learnintj and empire, and have never since
recovered the admiration and applauses that before attended
them. Yet, such as they are amongst us, they must be
confessed to be the softest and the sweetest, the most
general and most innocent amusements of common time
and life. They still find room in the courts of princes,
and the cottages of shepherds. They serve to revive
and animate the dead calm of poor and idle lives, and
to allay or divert the violent passions and perturbations
of the greatest and the busiest men. And both these
effects are of equal use to human life ; for the mind of man
IS like the sea, which is neither agreeable to the beholder
nor the voyager, in a calm or in a storm, but is so to both
when a little agitated by gentle gales; and so the mind,
when moved by soft and easy passions or affections. I
know very well that many who pretend to be wise by the
forms of being grave, are apt to despise both poetry and
music, as toys and trifles too light for the use or entertain-
ment of serious men. But whoever find themselves wholly
insensible to their charms, would, I think, do well to keep
their own counsel, for fear of reproaching their own temper,
236
Barbara S
and bringing the goodness of their natures, if not of their
understandings, into question. While this world lasts, I
doubt not but the pleasure and request of these two enter-
tainments will do so too; and happy those that content
themselves with these, or any other so easy and so
innocent, and do not trouble the world or other men,
because they cannot be quiet themselves, though nobody
hurts them." "When all is done (he concludes), human
life is at the greatest and the best but like a froward child,
that must be played with, and humoured a little, to keep
it quiet till it lalls asleep, and then the care is over."
BARBARA S-
On the noon of the 14th of November, 1743 or 4, I forget
which it was, just as the clock had struck one, Barbara
S , with her accustomed punctuality, ascended the long
rambhng staircase, with awkward interposed landing-places,
which led to the office, or rather a sort of box with a desk
in it, whereat sat the then Treasurer of (what few of our
readers may remember) the Old Bath Theatre. All over
the island it was the custom, and remains so I believe to
this day, for the players to receive their weekly stipend on
the Saturday. It was not much that Barbara had to claim.
This little maid had just entered her eleventh year ; but
her important station at the theatre, as it seemed to her,
with the benefits which she felt to accrue from her pious
application of her small earnings, had given an air of
womanhood to her steps and to her behaviour. You
would have taken her to have been at least five years
older.
Till latterly she had merely been employed in choruses,
or where children were warned to fill up the scene. But
the manager, observing a diligence and adroitness in her
above her age, had for some few months past intrusted to her
the performance of whole parts. You may guess the self-
consequence of the promoted Barbara. She had already
drawn tears in young Arthur : had rallied Richard with
infantine petulance in the Duke of York ; and in her turn
had rebuked that petulance when she was Prince of Wales.
She would have done the elder child in Morton's pathetic
237
The Essays of Elia
after-piece to the life ; but as yet the " Children in the
Wood " was not.
Long after this little girl was grown an aged woman, I
have seen some of these small parts, each making two or
three pages at most, copied out in the rudest hand of the
then prompter, who doubtless transcribed a little more
carefully and fairly for the grown-up tragedy ladies of the
establishment. But such as they were, blotted and scrawled,
as for a child's use, she kept them all ; and in the zenith of
her after reputation it was a delightful sight to behold them
bound up in costliest Morocco, each single— each small part
making a book — with fine clasps, gilt-splashed, &c. She
had conscientiously kept them as they had been delivered
to her ; not a blot had been effaced or tampered with.
They were precious to her for their affecting remembrancings.
They were her principia, her rudiments ; the elementary
atoms ; the little steps by which she pressed forward to
perfection. " What," she would say, "could Indian rubber,
or a pumice stone, have done for these darlings?"
I am in no hurry to begin my story — indeed I have little
or none to tell — so I will just mention an observation of
hers connected with that interesting time.
Not long before she died I had been discoursing with her
on the quantity of real present emotion which a great tragic
performer experiences during acting. I ventured to think that
though in the first instance such players must have possessed
the feelings which they so powerfully called up in others,
yet by frequent repetition those feelings must become
deadened in great measure, and the performer trust to the
memory of past emotion, rather than express a present one.
She indignantly repelled the notion, that with a truly great
tragedian the operation, by which such effects were pro-
duced upon an audience, could ever degrade itself into
what was purely mechanical. With much delicacy, avoiding
to instance in her jirZ/'-experience, she told me, that so long
ago as when she used to play the part of the Little Son to
Mrs. Porter's Isabella (I think it was), when that impressive
actress has been bending over her in some heart-rending
colloquy, she has felt real hot tears come trickling from her,
which (to use her powerful expression) have perfectly scalded
her back.
I am not quite so sure that it was Mrs. Porter; but it was
some great actress of that day. The name is indifferent ;
238
Barbara S
but the fact of the scalding tears I most distinctly re-
member.
I was always fond of the society of players, and am not
sure that an impediment in my speech (which certainly kept
me out of the pulpit) even more than certain personal
disqualifications, which are often got over in that profession,
did not prevent me at one time of life from adopting it. I
have had the honour (I must ever call it) once to have been
admitted to the tea-table of Miss Kelly. I have played at
serious whist with Mr. Liston. I have chatted with ever
good-humoured Mrs. Charles Kemble. I have conversed
as friend to friend with her accomplished husband. I have
been indulged with a classical conference with Macready;
and with a sight of the Player-picture gallery, at Mr.
Matthews's, when the kind owner, to remunerate me for my
love of the old actors (whom he loves so much), went over
it with me, supplying to his capital collection, what alone
the artist could not give them — voice ; and their living
motion. Old tones, half-faded, of Dodd, and Parsons, and
Baddeley, have lived again for me at his bidding. Only
Edwin he could not restore to me. I have supped with
; but I am growing a coxcomb.
As I was about to say — at the desk of the then treasurer
of the old Bath theatre — not Diamond's — presented
herself the little Barbara S .
The parents of Barbara had been in reputable circum-
stances. The father had practised, I believe, as an apothe-
cary in the town. But his practice, from causes which I
feel my own infirmity too sensibly that way to arraign — or
perhaps from that pure infelicity which accompanies some
people in their walk through life, and which it is impossible
to lay at the door of imprudence — was now reduced to
nothing. They were in fact in the very teeth of starvation,
when the manager, who knew and respected them in better
days, took the little Barbara into his company.
At the period I commenced with, her slender earnings
were the sole support of the family, including two younger
sisters. I must throw a veil over some mortifying circum-
stances. Enough to say, that her Saturday's pittance was
the only chance of a Sunday's (generally their only) meal of
meat.
One thing I will only mention, that in some child's part,
where in her theatrical character she was to sup off a roast
239
The Essays of Elia
fowl (O joy to Barbara !) some comic actor, who was for the
night caterer for this dainty — in the misguided humour of
his part, threw over the dish such a quantity of salt (O
grief and pain of heart to Barbara !) that when she crammed
a portion of it into her mouth, she was obliged splutteringly
to reject it ; and what with shame of her ill-acted part, and
pain of real appetite at missing such a dainty, her little
heart sobbed almost to breaking, till a flood of tears, which
the well-fed spectators were totally unable to comprehend,
mercifully relieved her.
This was the little starved, meritorious maid, who stood
before old Ravenscroft, the treasurer, for her Saturday's
payment.
Ravenscroft was a man, I have heard many old theatrical
people beside herself say, of all men least calculated for a
treasurer. He had no head for accounts, paid away at
random, kept scarce any books, and summing up at the
week's end, if he found himself a pound or so deficient,
blest himself that it was no worse.
Now Barbara's weekly stipend was a bare half guinea. —
By mistake he popped into her hand — a whole one.
Barbara trii ped away.
She was entirely unconscious at first of the mistake : God
knows Ravenscroft would never have discovered it.
But when she got down to the first of those uncouth
landing-'. laces, she became sensible of an unusual weight
of metal pressing her little hand.
Now mark the dilemma.
She was by nature a good child. From her parents and
those about her she had imbibed no contrary influence.
But then they had taught her nothing. Poor men's smoky
cabins are not always i orticoes of moral philosophy. This
little maid had no instinct to evil, but then she might be
said to have no fixed principle. She had heard honesty
commended, but never dreamed of its application to
herself She thought of it as something which concerned
grown-up peoi^le, men and women. She had never
known temptation, or thought of preparing resistance
against it.
Her first impulse was to go back to the old treasurer, and
explain to him his blunder. He was already so confused
with age, besides a natural want of punctuality, that she
would have had some difficulty in making him understand
240
Barbara S
it. She saw that in an instant. And then it was such a
bit of money ! and then the image of a larger allowance of
butcher's meat on their table next day came across her, till
her little eyes glistened, and her mouth moistened. But
then Mr. Ravenscroft had always been so good-natured, had
stood her friend behind the scenes, and even recommended
her promotion to some of her little parts. But again the
old man was reputed to be worth a world of money. He
was supposed to have fifty pounds a year clear of the
theatre. And then came staring upon her the figures of
her little stockingless and shoeless sisters. And when she
looked at her own neat white cotton stockings, which her
situation at the theatre had made it indispensable for her
mother to provide for her, with hard straining and pinching
from the family stock, and thought how glad she should be
to cover their poor feet with the same—and how then they
could accompany her to rehearsals, which they had hitherto
been precluded from doing, by reason of their unfashionable
attire. — in these thoughts she reached the second landing-
place — the second, I mean from the top — for there was still
another left to traverse.
Now virtue support Barbara !
And that never-failing friend did step in — for at that
moment a strength not her own, I have heard her say, was
revealed to her — a reason above reasoning — and without
her own agency, as it seemed (for she never felt her feet to
move) she found herself transported back to the individual
desk she had just quitted and her hand in the old hand of
Ravenscroft, who in silence took back the refunded treasure
and who had been sitting (good man) insensible to the
lapse of minutes, which to her were anxious ages ; and
from that moment a deep peace fell upon her heart, and
she knew the quality of honesty.
A year or two's unrepining application to her profession
brightened up the feet, and the prospects, of her little sisters,
set the whole family upon their legs again, and released her
from the difficulty of discussing moral dogmas upon a
landin;7-place.
I have heard her say, that it was a surprise, not much
short of mortification to her, to see the coolness with which
the old man pocketed the difference, which had caused
her such mortal throes.
This anecdote of herself I had in the year 1800, from the
Q 24T
The Essays of Elia
mouth of the late Mrs. Crawford,' then sixty-seven years of
age (she died soon after) ; and to her struggles upon this
childish occasion I have sometimes ventured to think her
indebted for that power of rending the heart in the repre-
sentation of conflicting emotions, for which in after years
she was considered as little inferior (if at all so in the part
of Lady Randolph) even to Mrs Siddons.
THE TOMBS IN THE ABBEY.
IN A LETTER TO R S , ESQ.'
Though in some points of doctrine, and perhaps of discip
line, I am difhcient of lending a perfect assent to that church
which you have so worthily historijied, yet may the ill time
never come to me, w^hen with a chilled heart, or a portion
of irreverent sentiment, I shall enter her beautiful and time-
hallowed Edifices. Judge then of my mortification when,
after attending the choral anthems of last Wednesday at
Westminster, and being desirous of renewing my acquaint-
ance, after lapsed years, with the tombs and antiquities
there, I found myself excluded ; turned out like a dog, or
some profane person, into the common street with feelings
not very congenial to the place, or to the solemn service
which I had been listening to. It was a jar after that
music.
You had your education at Westminster ; and doubtless
among those dim aisles and cloisters, you must have
gathered much of that devotional feeling in those young
years, on which your purest mind feeds still — and may it
feed ! The antiquarian spirit, strong in you and gracefully
blending ever with the religious, may have been sown in
you among those wrecks of splendid mortality. You owe
it to the place of your education ; you owe it to your
learned fondness for the architecture of your ancestors ; you
owe it to the venerableness of your ecclesiastical establish-
' The maiden name of this lady was Street, which she changed by
successive marriages for those of Dancer, Barry, and Crawford. She
was Mrs. Crawford, a third time a widow, when I knew her. [This
note is Lamb's mystification ; the story is true of Miss Kelly, though
details are altered.]
[' Robert Southey.]
242
The Tombs in the Abbey
ment, which is daily lessened and called in question through
these practices — to speak aloud your sense of them ; never
to desist raising your voice against them, till they be totally
doneaway with and abolished ; till the doors of Westminster
Abbey be no longer closed against the decent, though low-
in-purse,, enthusiast, or blameless devotee, who must
commit un injury against his family economy, if he would
be indulged with a bare admission within its walls. You
owe it to the decencies which you wish to see maintained in
its impressive services, that our Cathedral be no longer an
object of inspection to the poor at those times only, in
which they must rob from their attendance on the worship
every minute which they can bestow upon the fabric. In
vain the public prints have taken up this subject, in vain
such poor nameless writers as myself express their indigna-
tion. A word from you. Sir — a hint in your Journal —
would be sufficient to fling open the doors of the beautiful
Temple again, as we can remember them when we were
boys. At that time of life, what would the imaginative
faculty (such as it is) in both of us, have suffered, if the
entrance to so much reflection had been obstructed by the
demand of so much silver ! — If we had scraped it up to gain
an occasional admission (as we certainly should have done)
would the sight of those old tombs have been as impressive
to us (while we had been weighing anxiously prudence
against sentiment) as when the gates stood open, as those
of the adjacent Park ; when wecould walk in at any time, as
the mood brought us, for a shorter or longer time, as that
lasted? Is the being shown over a place the same as
silently for ourselves detecting the genius of it? In no
part of our beloved Abbey now can a person find entrance
(out of service time) under the sum of ttvo shillings. The
rich and the great will smile at the anticlimax, presumed to
lie in these two short words. But you can tell them. Sir,
how much quiet worth, how much capacity for enlarged
feeling, how much taste and genius, may coexist, especially
in youth, with a purse incompetent to this demand. — A
respected friend of ours, during his late visit to the metro-
polis, presented himself for admission to St. Paul's. At
the same time a decently clothed man, with as decent a
wife and child, were bargaining for the same indulgence.
The price was only two-pence each person. The poor but
decent man hesitated, desirous to go in ; but there were
243
The Essays of Elia
three of them, and he turned awaj' reluctantly. Perhaps he
wished to have seen the tomb of Nelson. Perhaps the In-
terior of the Cathedral was his object. But in the state of
his finances, even sixpence might reasonably seem too much.
Tell the Aristocracy of the country (no man can do it more
impressively) ; instruct them of what value these insignificant
pieces of money, these minims to their sight, m;^iy be to
their humbler brethren. Shame these Sellers out of the
Temple. Stifle not the suggestions of your better nature
with the pretext, that an indiscriminate admission would
expose the Tombs to violation. Remember your boy-days.
Did you ever see, or hear, of a mob in the Abbey, while it
was free to all? Do the rabble come there, or trouble their
heads about such speculations? It is all that you can do
to drive them into your churches ; they do not voluntarily
offer themselves. They have, alas ! no passron for anti-
quities ; for tomb of king or prelate, sage or poet. If they
had, they would be no longer the rabble.
For forty years that I have known the Fabric, the only well-
attested charge of violation adduced, has been — a ridiculous
dismemberment committed upon the effigy of that amiable
spy, Major Andre. And is it for this — the wanton mischief
of some school-boy, fired perhaps with raw notions of
Transatlantic Freedom — or the remote possibility of such a
mischief occurring again, so easily to be prevented by
stationing a constable within the walls, if the vergers are in-
competent to the duty — is it upon such wretched pretences,
that the people of England are made to pay a new Pfi-ter's
Pence, so long abrogated : or must content themselves with
contemplating the ragged Exterior of their Cathedral ?
The mischief was done about the time that you were a
scholar there. Do you know anything about the unfor-
tunate relic? —
AMICUS REDIVIVUS.
Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseleps deep
Clos'd o'er the head of your loved Lycidas ?
I DO not know when I have experienced a stranger sensa-
tion, than on seeing my old friend G. D.,' who had been
paying me a morning visit a few Sundays back, at my
[' George Dyer.]
244
Amicus Redivivus
cottage at Islington, upon taking leave, instead of turning
down the right hand path by which he had entered — with
staff in hand, and at noon day, deliberately march right
forwards into the midst of the stream that runs by us, and
totally disappear.
A spectacle like this at dusk would have been appalling
enough ? but, in the broad open daylight, to witness such
an unreserved motion towards self-destruction in a valued
friend, took from me all power of speculation.
How I found my teet, 1 know not. Consciousness was
quite gone. Some spirit, not my own, whirled me to the
spot. I remember nothmg but the silvery apparition of a
good white head emerging; nigh which a staff (the hand un-
seen that wielded it) pointed upwards, as feeling for the
skies. In a moment (if time was in that time) he was on my
shoulders, and I — freighted with a load more precious than
his who bore Anchises.
And here I cannot but do justice to the officious zeal of
sundry passers by, who, albeit arriving a little too late to
participate in the honours of the rescue^ in philanthropic
shoals came thronging to communicate their advice as to
the recovery ; prescribing variously the application, or non-
application, of salt, &c., to the person of the patient. Life
meantime was ebbing fast away, amidst the stifle of conflict-
ing judgments, when one, more sagacious than the rest, by
a bright thought, proposed sending for the Doctor. Trite
as the counsel was, and impossible, as one should think, to
be missed on, — shall I confess ? in this emergency, it was
to me as if an Angel had spoken. Great previous exertions
— and mine had not been inconsiderable — are commonly
followed by a debility of purpose. This was a moment of
irresolution.
MoNOCULUS — for so, in default of catching his true name,
I choose to designate the medical gentleman who now
appeared — is a grave, middle-aged person, who, without
having studied at the college, or truckled to the pedantry of
a diploma, hath employed a great portion of his valuable
time in evierirnental processes upon the bodies of un-
fortunate fellow-creatures, in whom the vital spark, to mere
vul,:;ar thinking, would seem extinct, and lost for ever. He
omitteth no occasion of obtruding his services, from a case
of common surfeit-suffocation to the ignobler obstructions,
soiaetimes induced by a too wilful application of the plant
24 1
The Essays of Elia
Cannabis outwardly. But though he declineth not alto-
gether these drier extinctions, his occupation tendeth for
the most part to water-practice ; for the convenience of
which, he hath judiciously fixed his quarters near the grand
repository of the stream mentioned, where, day and night,
from his Httle watch tower, at the Middleton's Head, he
listeneth to detect the wrecks of drowned mortality — partly,
as he saith, to be upon the spot — and partly, because the
liquids which he useth to prescribe to himself and his
patients, on these distressing occasions, are ordinarily more
conveniently to be found at these common hostelries, than
in the shops and phials of the apothecaries. His ear hath
arrived to such finesse by practice, that it is reported he
can distinguish a plunge at a half furlong distance ; and
can tell, if it be casual or deliberate. He weareth a medal,
suspended over a suit, originally of a sad brown, but which,
by time, and frequency of nightly divings, has been dinged
into a true professional sable. He passeth by the name of
Doctor, and is remarkable for wanting his left eye. His
remedy — after a sufficient application of warm blankets,
friction, &c., is a simple tumbler, or more, of the purest
Cognac, with water, made as hot as the convalescent can
bear it. Where he findeth, as in the case of my friend, a
squeamish subject, he condescendeth to be the taster; and
showeth, by his own example, the innocuous nature of the
prescription. Nothing can be more kind or encourap;ing
than this procedure. It addeth confidence to the patient,
to see his medical adviser go hand in hand with himself in
the remedy. When the doctor swallowtth his own draught,
what peevish invalid can refuse to pledge him in the potion ?
In fine, Monoculus is a humane, sensible man, who, for a
slender pittance, scarce enough to sustain life, is content to
wear it out in the endeavour to save the lives of others — his
pretensions so moderate, that with difficulty I could press a
crown upon him, for the price of restoring the existence of
such an invaluable creature to society as G. D.
It was pleasant to observe the effect of the subsiding
alarm upon the nerves of the dear absentee. It seemed to
have given a shake to memory, calling up notice after
notice, of all the providential deliverances he had ex-
perienced in the course of his long and innocent life.
Sitting up in my couch — my couch which, naked and void
of furniture hitherto, for the salutary repose which it
246
Amicus Redivivus
administered, shall be honoured with costly valance, at
some price, and henceforth be a state-bed at Colebrook, —
he discoursed of marvellous escapes — by carelessness of
nurses — by pails of gelid, and kettles of the boiling element,
in infancy — by orchard pranks, and snapping twigs, in
schoolboy frolics — by descent of tiles at Trumpington, and
of heavier tomes at Pembroke — by studious watchings,
inducing frightful vigilance — by want, and the fear of want,
and all the sore throbbings of the learned head. — Anon, he
would burst into little fragments of chanting — of songs long
ago — ends of deliverance hymns, not remembered befor*
since childhood, but coming up now, when his heart was
made tender as a child's — for the tremor cordis, in the
retrospect of a recent deliverance, as in a case of impending
danger, acting upon an innocent heart, will produce a self-
tenderness, which we should do ill to christen cowardice ;
and Shakspeare, in the latter crisis, has made his good Sir
Hugh to remember the sitting by Babylon, and to mutter of
shallow rivers
Waters of Sir Hugh Middleton — what a spark you were
like to have extinguished for ever! Your salubrious
streams to this City, for now near two centuries, would
hardly have atoned for what you were in a moment wash-
ing away. Mockery of a river — liquid artifice — wretched
conduit ! henceforth rank with canals, and sluggish aque-
ducts. Was it for this, that, smit in boyhood with the
explorations of that Abyssinian traveller, I paced the vales
of Amwell to explore your tributary springs, to trace your
salutary waters sparkling through green Hertfordshire, and
cultured Enfield parks? — Ye have no swans — no Naiads —
no river God — or did the benevolent hoary aspect of my
friend tempt ye to suck him in, that ye also might have the
tutelary genius of your waters.
Had he been drowned in Cam there would have been
some consonancy in it ; but what willows had ye to wave
and rustle over his moist sepulture ? — or, having no name,
besides that unmeaning assumption of eternal novtty, did ye
think to get one by the noble prize, and henceforth to be
termed the Stream Dyerian ?
And could such spacious virtue find a grave
Beneath the imposthumed bubble of a wave?
I protest, George, you shall not venture out again — no,
247
The Kssays of Elia
not by daylight — without a sufficient pair of spectacles — in
your musing moods especially. Your absence of mind we
have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in
question by it. You shall not go wandering into Euripus
with Aristotle, if we can help it. Fie, man, to turn dipper
at your years, after your many tracts in favour of sprinkling
only !
I have nothing but water in my head o'nights since this
frightful accident. Sometimes I am with (Clarence in his
dream. At others, I behold Christian beginning to sink,
and crying out to his good brother Hopeful (that is, to me),
" I sink in deep water ; the billows go over my head, all
the waves go over me. Selah." Then I have before me
Palinurus, just letting go the steerage. I cry out too late to
save. Next follow — a mournful procession — suicidal faces,
saved against their wills from drowning ; dolefully trailing a
length of reluctant gratefulness, with ropy weeds pendent
from locks of watchet hue — constrained Lazari — Pluto's
half-subjects— stolen fees from the grave — bilking Charon
of his fare. At their head Arion — or is it G. D. ? — in his
singing garments marcheth singly, with harp in hand, and
votive garland, which Machaon (or Dr. Hawes) snatcheth
straight, intending to suspend it to the stern God of Sea.
Then follow dismal streams of Lethe, in which the half-
drenched on earth are constrained to drown downright, by
wharfs where Ophelia twice acts her muddy death.
And, doubtless, there is some notice in that invisible
world, when one of us approacheth (as my friend did so
lately) to their inexorable precincts. When a soul knocks
once, twice, at death's door, the sensation aroused within
the palace must be considerable ; and the grim Feature, by
modern science so often dispossessed of his {>rey, must
have learnt by this time to pity Tantalus.
A pulse assuredly was felt along the line of the Elysian
shades, when the near arrival of G. D. was announced by
no equivocal indications. From their seats of Asphodel
arose the gentler and the graver ghosts — poet, or historian,
— of Grecian or of Roman lore — to crown with unfading
chaplets the half-finished love labours of their unwearied
scholiast. Him Markland expected — him Tyrwhitt hoped
to encounter — him the sweet lyrist of Peter House, whom
he had barely seen upon earth,^ with newest airs prepared
* Gr.MUM tanturn vidit.
348
Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney
to greet ; and, patron of the gentle Christ's boy, — who
should have been his patron through life — the mild Askew,
with longing aspirations leaned foremost from his venerable
^''soulapian chair, to welcome into that happy company the
matured virtues of the man, whose tender scions in the boy
he himself upon earth had so prophetically fed and watered.
SOME SONNETS OF SIR PHILIP SYDNEY.
Sydney's Sonnets — I speak of the best of them — are among
the very best of their sort. They fall below the plain
moral dignity, the sanctity, and high yet modest spirit of
self-approval, of Milton, in his comp^ sitions of a similar
structure. They are in a truth what Milton, censuring the
Arcadia, says of that work (to which they are a sort of after-
tune or application), "vain and amatorious" enough, yet
ttie things in their kind (as he confesses to be true of the
romance) may be "full of worth and wit." They savour of
the Courtier, it must be allovved, and not of the Conimon-
wealthsman. But Milton was a Courtier when he wrote
the Masque at I.udlow Castle, and still more a Courtier
when he composed the Arcades. When the national
struggle was to begin, he becomingly cast these vanities
behind him ; and if the order of time had thrown Sir Philip
upon the crisis which preceded the Revolution, there is no
reason why he should not have acted the same part in that
emergency, which has glorified the name of a later Sydney.
He did not want for plainness or boldness of spirit. His
letter on the French match may testify, he could speak his
mind freely to Princes. The times did not call him to the
scaffold.
The Sonnets which we oftenest call to mind of Milton
were the compositions of his maturest years. Those of
Sydney, which I am about to produce, were written in the
very hey-day of his blood. They are stuck full of amorous
fancies — far-fetched conceits, befitting his occupation : for
True Love thinks no labour to send out Thoughts upon the
vast, and more than Indian voyages, to bring home rich
pearls, outlandish wealth, gums, jewels, spicery, to sacrifice
in self-depreciating similitudes, as shadows of true amia-
bilities in the Beloved. We must be Lovers — or at least
249
The Essays of Hlia
the cooling touch of time, the circum prcecordia frtgus, must
not have so damped our faculties, as to take away our
recollection that we were once so^before we can duly
appreciate the glorious vanities, and graceful hyperboles, of
the passion. The images which lie before our feet (though
by some accounted the only natural) are least natural for
the high Sydnean love to express its fancies by. They may
serve for the loves of Tibullus, or the dear Author of the
Schoolmistress ; for passions that creep and whine in Elegies
and Pastoral Ballads. I am sure Milton never loved at
this rate. I am afraid some of his addresses {ad Leonoram
I mean) have rather erred on the farther side; and that the
poet came not much short of a religious indecorum, when
he could thus apostrophise a singing-girl ; —
Angelus unicuique suus (sic credite gentes)
Obtigit aetheriis ales ab ordinibus.
Quid mirum, Leonora, tibi si gloria major,
Nam tua praesentem vox sonat ipsa Deum ?
Aut Deus, aut vacui certe mens tenia coeli,
Per tua secret^ guttura serpit agens ;
Serpit agens, faci'.isque docet mortalia corda
Sensim immortali assuescere posse sono.
Quod si cuncta quidem Deus est, per cunctaque fusus,
In TK una loquitur, Ci«TERA MUTUS HABET.
This is loving in a strange fashion : and it requires some
candour of construction (besides the slight darkening of a
dead language) to cast a veil over the ugly appearance of
something very like blasphemy in the last two verses. I
think the Lover would have been staggered, if he had gone
about to express the same thought in English. I am sure,
Sydney has no flights like this. His extravaganzas do net
strike at the sky, though he takes leave to adopt the pale
Dian into a fellowship with his mortal passions.
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies ;
How silently ; and with how wan a face 1
What ! may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries ?
Sure, if that long-w iiii-love-acquaintcd eyes
Can judge of love, ihou feel'st a lover's case ;
I read it in thy looks ; thy languish! grace
To me, that feel the like, thy slate descrits.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is con-tant love dcenfd thrre but want of wit !
250
Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney
Are beauties there as proud as here they be ?
Do they above love to he loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn, whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there — ungratefulness ?
The last line of this poem is a little obscured by trans-
position. He means, Do they call ungratefulness there a
virtue ?
Come, Sleep, O Sleep, the certain knot of peace
The baiting place of wit, the balm of woe,
The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,
The indifferent judge between the high and low ;
With shield of proof shield me from out the prease'
Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw ;
0 make in me those civil wars to cease :
1 will good tribute pay, if thou do so.
Take thou of me sweet pillows, sweetest bed ;
A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light ;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.
And if these things, as being thine by right.
Move not thy heavy grace, thou shalt in me,
Livelier than elsewhere, Stella's image see.
The curious wits, seeing dull pensiveness
Bewray itself in my long-settled eyes,
Whence those same fumes of melancholy rise,
With idle pains, and missing aims, do guess.
Some, that know how my spring I did address.
Deem that my Muse some fruit of knowledge piles
Others, because the Prince my service tries.
Think, that I think state errors to redress ;
But harder judges judge, ambition's rage.
Scourge of itself, still climbing slippery place,
Holds my young brain captiv'd in golden cage.
O fools, or over-wise ! alas, the race
Of all my thoughts hath neither stop nor start,
But only Stella's eyes, and Stella's heart.
Because I oft in dark abstracted guise
Seem most alone in greatest company.
With dearth of words, or answers quite awry,
To them that would make speech of speech arise ;
They deem, and of their doom the rumour flies,
That poison foul of bubbling Pride doth lie
So in my swelling breast, that only I
Fawn on myself, and others do despise ;
' Press.
251
The Essays of Elia
Yet Pride, I think, dt)ih not my soul possess,
Which looks too oft in his unflattering glass ;
F.ut one worse fault — Ambition — I confess,
That makes me oft my best friends over]:)ass,
Unseen, unheard — while Thought to highest place
Bends all his powers, even unto Stella's grace.
Having this day, my horse, my hand, my lance,
Guided so well that I obtained the prize.
Both by the judgment of the English eyes,
And of some sent from that sweet enemy, — France;
Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance ;
Townsfolk my strength ; a daintier judge applies
His praise to sleight, which from good use doth rise ;
Some lucky wits impute it but to chance ;
Others, because of both sides I do take
My blood from them, who did excel in this.
Think Nature me a man of arms did make.
How (ar they shot awry ! the true cause is,
Stella looked on, and from her heavenly face
Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race.
In martial sports I had my cunning tried.
And yet to break more staves did me address.
While with the people's shouts (I must confess)
Youth, luck, and praise, even fill'd my veins with pride-
When Cupid having me (his slave) descried
In Mars's livery, prancing in the press,
" What now. Sir Fool ! " said he : "I would no less :
Ivook here, I say." I look'd, and Stklla spied,
Whc) hard by made a window send forth light.
My heart then quak'd, then dazzled were mine eyes
One hand forgot to rule, th' other to fight :
Nor trumpet's sound I heard, nor Iriendly cries.
My foe came on, and beat the air for me —
Till that her blush made me mv shame to see.
No more, my dear, no more these counsels try ;
0 give my passions leave to run their race ;
Let Fortune lay on me her worst disgrace ;
I^t folk o'ercharged with brain against me cry ;
Let clouds bedim my face, break in mine eye ;
Let me no steps, but of lost labour, trace ;
Let all the earth with scorn recount my case-
But do not will me from my love to fly,
1 do not envy Aristotle's wit,
Nor do aspire to CiEsar's bleeding fame ;
Nor ai'.pht do care, though some aliove me sit
Nor hope, nor wish, another course to frame.
252
Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney
Bnt that which once may win thy cruel heart :
Thou art my wit, and thou my virtue art.
LovK still a boy, and oft a wanton, is,
School'd only by his mother's tender eye ;
What wonder then, it he his lesson miss,
When for so soft a rod dear play he try?
And yel my Star, because a sugar'd kiss
In sport I suck"d, while she asleep did lie.
Doth lour, nay chide, nay threat, for only this.
Sweet, it was saucy Love, not humble I
But no 'scuse serves; she makes her wrath appear
In beauty's throne — see now who dares come near
Those scarlet judges, threat'ning bloody pain ?
O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face
Anger invests wiih such a lovely grace.
That anger's self I needs must kiss again.
I never drank of Aganippe well.
Nor ever did in shade of Ternpe sit,
And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell ;
Poor lay-man I, for sacred rites unfit.
Some do I hear of Poet's fury tell.
But (God wot) wot not what they mean by it ;
And this I swear by blackest brook of hell,
I am no pick-purse of another's wit.
How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease
My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth llow
In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please ?
Guess me the cause — what is it thus ? — fye, no.
Or so? — much less. How then ? sure thtis it is,
My lips are sweet, inspired by Stella's kiss.
X.
Of all the kings that ever here did reign,
Edward, named Fourth, as first in praise I name,
Not for his fair outside, nor well-lined brain
Although less gifts imp feathers oft on Fame.
Nor that he could, young-wise, wise-valiant, frame
His sire's revenge, join'd with a kingdom's gain ;
And, gain'd by Mars could yet mad Mars so tame,
That Balance weigh'd what .Sword did late obtain.
Nor that he made the F'loure-de-luce so 'fraid,
Though strongly hedged of bloody Lions' paws,
That witty Lewis to him a tribute paid.
Nor this, nor that, nor any such small cause — •
But only, for this worthy knight durst prove
To lose his crown rather than fail his love.
253
The Essays of Elia
XI.
0 happy Thames, that didst my Stella bear,
1 saw thyself, with many a smiling line
Upon thy cheerful face, Joy's livery wear,
While those fair planets on thy streams did shine
The boat for joy could not to dance forbear,
While wanton winds, with beauty so divine
Ravish'd, stay'd not, till in her golden hair,
They did themselves (O sweetest prison) twine.
And fain those /Eol's youth there would their stay
Have made ; but, forced by nature still to fly,
First did with puffing kiss those locks displny.
She, so dishevell'd, blush'd ! from window 1
With sight thereof cried out, O fair disgrace.
Let honour's self to thee grant highest place 1
XII.
Highway, since you my chief Parnassus be ;
And that my Muse, to some ears not unsweet,
Tempers her words to trampling horses' feet.
More soft than to a chamber melody ;
Now blessed You bear onward blessed Me
To her, where I my heart safe left shall meet,
My Muse and I must you of duty greet
With thanks and wishes, wishing thankfully,
Be you still fair, honour'd by public heed,
By no encroachment wrong'd nor time forgot ;
Nor blam'd for blood, nor shamed for sinful deed.
And that you know, I envy you no lot
Of highest wish, I wish you so much bliss.
Hundreds of years you Stella's feet may kiss.
Of the foregoing, the first, the second, and the last
sonnet, are my favourites. But the general beauty of them
all, is, that they are so perfectly characteristical. The spirit
of " learning and of chivalry," — of which union, Spenser has
entitled Sydney to have been the " president," — shines
through them. I confess I can see nothing of the " jejune "
or "frigid" in them; much less of the "stiff" and
" cumbrous " — which I have sometimes heard objected to
the Arcadia. The verse runs off swiftly and gallantly. It
might have been tuned to the trumpet ; or tempered (as
himself expresses it) to " trampling horses' feet." They
abound in felicitous phrases —
O heav'nly Fool, thy most kiss-worthy face —
8(A Sonnet.
Sweet pillows, sweetest bed ;
A chamber deaf to noise, and blind to light ;
A rosy garland, and a weary head.
2»d Sonnet.
That sweet enemy, — France — yh Sonnet.
254
Some Sonnets of Sir Philip Sydney
But they are not rich in words only, in vague and
unlocalised feelings — the failing too much of some poetry
of the present day — they are full, material, and circumstan-
tiated. Time and place appropriates every one of them. It
is not a fever of passion wasting itself upon a thin diet of
dainty words, but a transcendent passion pervading and
illuminating action, pursuits, studies, feats of arms, the
opinions of contemporaries and his judgment of them. An
historical thread runs through them, which almost affixes a
date to them ; marks the ivhen and whers they were
written.
I have dwelt the longer upon what I conceive the merit
of these poems, because I have been hurt by the wantonness
(I wish I could treat it by a gentler name) with which W,
H.' takes every occasion of insulting the memory of Sir
Philip Sydney. But the decisions of the Author of Table
Talk, &c. (most profound and subtle where they are, as for
the most part, just) are more safely to be relied upon, on
subjects and authors he has a partiality for, than on such as
he has conceived an accidental prejudice against. Milton
wrote Sonnets, and was a king-hater; and it was congenial
perhaps to sacrifice a courtier to a patriot. But I was un-
willing to lose a fi7ie idea from my mind. The noble
images, passions, sentiments, and poetical delicacies of
character, scattered all over the Arcadia (spite of some
stiffness and encumberment), justify to me the character
which his contemporaries have left us of the writer. I can-
not think with the Critic, that Sir Philip Sydney was that
opprobrious thing which a foolish nobleman in his insolent
hostility chose to term him. I call to mind the epitaph
made on him, to guide me to juster thoughts of him; and
I repose upon the beautiful lines in the " Friend's Passion
for his Astrophel," printed with the Elegies of Spenser and
others.
You knew — who knew not Astrophel ?
(That I should live to say I knew,
And have not in possession still !) —
Things known permit me to renew —
Of him you know his merit s.ich,
I cannot say — you hear — too much.
Within these woods of Arcady
He chief delight and pleasure took ;
[' William Hazlitt.]
255
The Essays of Elia
And on the mountain Partheny,
Upon the crystal liquid brook,
The mu=e.s met him every day,
That taught him sing, to wriie, and say.
When he descended down the mount,
His personage seemed most divine :
A thousand graces one might count
Upon his lovely cheerful eyne.
To hear him speak, and sweetly smile.
You were in Paradise the while.
A sweet attractive kind of g7-ace ;
A full assurance given by looks ;
Continual comfort in a face
The. lineaments of Gospel books
I trow that counl'nance cannot lye,
Whose thoughts are legil^le in the eye.
♦ » » » ♦
Above all others this is he,
Which erst approved in his song
That love and honour might agree,
And that pure love will do no wrong.
Sweet saints, it is no sin or blame
To love a man of virtuous name.
Did never love so sweetly breathe
In any mortal breast before :
Did never Muse inspire beneath
A Poet's brain a finer store,
He wrote of Love with high conceit,
And Beauty rear'd above her height.
Or let any one read the deeper sorrows (grief running into
rage) in the Poem, — the last in the collection accompany-
ing the above, — which from internal testimony I believe to
be Lord Brooke's, — beginning with "Silence augmenteth
grief," — and then seriously ask himself, whether the subject
of such absorbing and confounding regrets could have been
that thing which Lord Oxford termed him.
NEWSPAPERS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.
Dan Stuart once told us, that he did not remember that
he ever deliberately walked into the Exhibition at Somerset
House in his life. He might occasionally have escorted a
party of ladies across the way that were going in ; but he
never went in of his own head. Yet the office of the
256
Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago
Morning Post newspaper stood then just where it does
now — we are carrying you back, Reader, some thirty years
or more — with its gilt-globe-topt front facing that emporium
of our artists' grand Annual Exposure. We sometimes
wish that we had observed the same abstinence with
Daniel.
A word or two of D. S. He ever appeared to us one
of the finest tempered of Editors. Perry, of the Morning
Chronicle, was equally pleasant, with a dash, no slight one
either, of the courtier. S. was frank, plain, and English all
over. We have worked for both these gentlemen.
It is soothing to contemplate the head of the Ganges;
to trace the first little bubblings of a mighty river ;
With holy reverence to approach the rocks,
Whence glide the streams renowned in ancient song.
Fired with a perusal of the Abyssinian Pilgrim's explora-
tory ramblings after the cradle of the infant Nilus, we well
remember on one fine summer holyday (a "whole day's
leave " we called it at Christ's Hospital) sallying forth at
rise of sun, not very well provisioned either for such an
undertaking, to trace the current of the New River — Middle-
tonian stream ! — to its scaturient source, as we had read, in
meadows by fair Am well. Gallantly did we commence our
solitary quest — for it was essential to the dignity of a
Discovery, that no eye of schoolboy, save our own, should
beam on the detection. By flowery spots, and verdant
lanes skirting Hornsey, Hope trained us on in many a baffling
turn ; endless hopeless meanders, as it seemed ; or as if the
jealous waters had dodged us, reluctant to have the humble
spot of their nativity revealed ; till spent, and nigh famished,
before set of the same sun, we sate down somewhere by
Bowes Farm, near Tottenham, with a tithe of our proposed
labours only yet accomplished ; sorely convinced in spirit,
that that Brucian enterprise was as yet too arduous for our
young shoulders.
Not more refreshing to the thirsty curiosity of the traveller
is the tracing of some mighty waters up to their shallow
fontlet, than it is to a pleased and candid reader to go back
to the inexperienced essays, the first callow flights in author-
ship, of some established name in literature; from the Gnat
which preluded to the .^neid, to the Duck which Samuel
Johnson trod on.
R 357
The Essays of Elia
In those days every Morning Paper, as an essential
retainer to its establishment, kept an author, who was
bound to furnish daily a quantum of witty paragraphs.
Sixpence a joke, and it was thought pretty high too — was
Dan Stuart's settled remuneration in these cases. The chat
of the day, scandal, but, above all, dress, furnished the
material. The length of no paragraph was to exceed seven
lines. Shorter they might be, but they must be poignant.
A fashion of /iesh, or rather /m/^-coloured hose for the
ladies, luckily coming up at the juncture, when we were on
our probation for the place of Chief Jester to S.'s Paper,
established our reputation in that line. We were pronounced
a "capital hand." O the conceits which we varied upon
red in all its prismatic differences ! from the trite and
obvious flower of Cytherea, to the flaming costume of the
lady that has her sitting upon "many waters." Then there
was the collateral topic of ankles. What an occasion to a
truly chaste writer, like ourself, of touching that nice brink,
and yet never tumbling over it, of a seemingly ever approxi-
mating something "not quite proper;" while, like a skilful
posture-master, balancing betwixt decorums and their
opposites, he keeps the line, from which an hair's-breadth
deviation is destruction; hovering in the confines of light
and d'.rkness, or where " both seem either;" a hazy un-
certain delicacy; Autolycus-like in the Play, still putting
off his expectant auditory with " Whoop, do me no harm,
good man ! " But, above all, that conceit arrided us most
at that time, and slill tickles our midriff to remember, where
allusively to the flight of Astrsea — tdiima CcpJesium terras
reliquit — we pronounced — in reference to the stockings still
that MODRSTY, TAKING HER FINAL LEAVE OF MORTALS,
HER LAST Blush was visible in her ascent to the
Heavens by the tract of the glowing instep. This
might be called the crowning conceit; and was esteemed
tolerable writing in those days.
But the fashion of jokes, with all other things, passes
away; as did the transient mode which had so favoured us.
The ankles of our fair friends in a few weeks began to re-
assume their whiteness, and left us scarce a leg to stand
upon. Other female whims followed, but none, methought,
so pregnant, so invitatory of shrewd conceits, and more than
single meanings.
Somebody has said, that to swallow six cross-buns daily
258
Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago
consecutively for a fortnight, would surfeit the stoutest
digestion. But to have to furnish as many jokes daily, and
that not for a fortnight, but for a long twelvemonth, as we
were constrained to do, was a little harder exaction. " Man
goeth forth to his work until the evening " — from a reason-
able hour in the morning, we presume it was meant. Now,
as our main occupation took us up from eight till five every
day in the city ; and as our evening hours, at that time of
life, had generally to do with any thing rather than business,
it follows, that the only time we could spare for this manu-
factory of jokes — our supplementary livelihood, that supplied
us in every want beyond mere bread and cheese — was
exactly that part of the day which (as we have heard of No
Man's Land) may be fitly denominated No Mans Time;
that is, no time, in which a man ought to be up, and awake,
in. To speak more plainly, it is that time, of an hour, or an
hour and a half's duration, in which a man, whose occasions
call him uf) so preposterously, has to wait for his breakfast.
O those headaches at dawn of day, when at five, or hnlf-
past five in summer, and not much later in the dark seasons,
we were compelled to rise, having been perhaps not above
four hours in bed — (for we were no go-to-beds with the
lamb, though we anticipated the lark ofttimes in her rising
— we like a parting cup at midnight, as all young men did
before these effeminate times, and to have our fritncis about
us — we were not constellated under Aquarius, that watery
sign, and therefore incapable of Bacchus, cold, washy,
bloodless — we were none of your Basilian water-sponges,
nor had taken our degrees at Mount Ague — we were right
toping Capulets, jolly companions, we and they) — but to
have to get up, as we said before, curtailed of half our fair
sleep, fasting, with only a dim vista of refreshing Bohea in
the distance — to be necessitated to rouse ourselves at the
detestable rap of an old hag of a domestic, who seemed to
take a diabolical pleasure in her announcement that it was
" time to rise ;" and whose chappy knuckles we have often
yearned to amputate, and string them up at our chamber-
door, to be a terror to all such unreasonable rest-breakers
in future —
" Facil " and sweet, as Virgil sings, had been the " descend-
ing" of the over-night, bdmy the first sinking of the heavy
head upon the pillow ; but to get up, as he goes on to say,
— revocare gradus, superasque evadere ad auras —
259
The Essays of Elia
and to get up moreover to make jokes with malice prepended
— there was the "labour," there the "work."
No Egyptian taskmaster ever devised a slavery like to
that, our slavery. No fractious operants ever turned out
for half the tyranny, which this necessity exercised upon us.
Half a dozen jests in a day (bating Sunday too), why, it
seems nothing! We make twice the number every day in
our lives as a matter of course, and claim no Sabbatical
exemptions. But then they come into our head. But when
the head has to go out to them — when the mountain must
go to Mahomet —
Reader, try it for once, only for one short twelvemonth.
It was not every week that a fashion of pink stockings
came up ; but mostly instead of it, some rugged, untractable
subject; some topic impossible to be contorted into the
risible ; some feature, upon which no smile could play ; some
flint, from which no process of ingenuity could procure a
distillation. There they lay; there your appointed tale of
brick-making was set before you, which you must finish,
with or without straw, as it happened. The craving Dragon
— the Public — like him in Bel's temple — must be fed ; it
expected its daily rations ; and Daniel, and ourselves, to do
us justice, did the best we could on this side bursting him.
While we were wringing out coy sprightlinesses for the
Post, and writhing under the toil of what is called "easy
writing," Bob Allen, onr quondam schoolfellew, was tapping
his imi)racticable brains in a like service for the "Oracle."
Not that Robert troubled himself much about wit. If his
paragraphs had a sprightly air about them, it was sufficient.
He carried this nonchalance so far at last, that a matter of
intelligence, and that no very important one, was not seldom
palmed upon his employers for a good jest ; for example
sake — " Walking yesterday morning casually doivn Snoiv Hill,
who should we meet but Mr. Deputy Humphreys ; we rejoice to
add that the worthy Dep%iiy appeared to enjoy a good state of
health. We do not ever remember to have seen him look better.^^
This gentleman so surprisingly met upon Snow Hill, from
some peculiarities in gait or gesture, was a constant butt for
mirth to the small paragraph-mongers of the day ; and our
friend thought that he might have his fling at him with the
rest. We met A. in Holborn shortly after this extraordinary
rencounter, which he told with tears of satisfaction in his
eyes, and chuckling at the anticipated effects of its announce-
260
Newspapers Thirty-five Years Ago
ment next day in the paper. We did not quite comprehend
where the wit of it lay at the time; nor was it easy to be
detected, when the thing came out, advantaged by type and
letterpress. He had betier have met any thing that morn-
ing than a Common Council Man. His services were shortly
after dispensed with, on the plea that his paragraphs oi late
had been deficient in point. The one in question, it must
be owned, had an air, in the opening especially, proper to
awaken curiosity ; and the sentiment, or moral, wears the
aspect of humanity and good neighbourly feeling. But
somehow the conclusion was not judged altogether to answer
to the magnificent promise of the premises. We traced our
friend's pen afterwards in the " True Briton," the "Star,"
the "Traveller," — from all which he was successively dis-
missed, the Proprietors having " no further occasion for his
services." Nothing was easier than to detect him. When
wit failed, or topics ran low, there constantly appeared the
following — "// is not generally known that the three Blue
Balls at the Pawnbroker's shops are the ancient arms of
Lombardy . The Lombards were the first money-brokers in
Europe." Bob has done more to set the public right on
this important point of blazonry, than the whole College of
Heralds.
Tne appointment of a regular wit has long ceased to be
a part of the economy of a Morning Paper. Editors find
their own jokes, or do as well without them. Parson Este,
and Topham, brought up the set custom of "witty para-
graphs " first in the World. Boaden was a reigning
paragraphist in his day, and succeeded poor Allen in the
Oracle. But, as we said, the fashion of jokes passes away;
and it would be difficult to discover in the Biographer of
Mrs. Siddons, any traces of that vivacity and fancy which
charmed the whole town at the commencement of the
present century. Even the prelusive delicacies of the
present writer — the curl "Astrasan allusion" — would be
thought pedantic and out of date, in these days.
From the office of the Morning Post (for we may as well
exhaust our Newspaper Reminiscences at once) by change
of property in the paper, we were transferred, mortifying
exchange ! to the office of the Albion Newspaper, late
Rackstrow's Museum, in Fleet Street. What a transition
— from a handsome apartment, from rose-wood desks, and
silver inkstands, to an office — no office, but a den rather,
261
The Essays of Elia
but just redeemed from the occupation of dead monsters,
oi which it seemed redolent — from the centre of loyalty
and fashion, to a focus of vulgarity and sedition ! Here
in murky closet, inadequate from its square contents to the
receipt of the two bodies of Editor, and humble para-
graph-maker, together at one time, sat in the discharge of
his new Editorial functions (the "Bigod" of Elia) the
redoubted John Fenwick.
F., wiihout a guinea in his pocket, and having left not
many in the pockets of his friends whom he might com-
mand, had purchased (on tick doubtless) the whole and
sole Editorship, Proprietorship, with all the rights and
titles (such as they are worth) of the Albion, from one
Lovell; of whom we know nothing, save that he had stood
in the pillory for a libel on the Prmce of Wales. With this
hopeless concern — for it had been sinking ever since its
commencement, and could now reckon upon not more
than a hundred subscribers— F. resolutely determined
upon pulling down the Government in the first instance,
vi.id making both our fortunes by way of corollary. For
seven weeks and more did this infatuated Democrat go
about borrowing seven-shilling pieces, and lesser coin, to
meet the daily demands of the Stamp Office, which
allowed no credit to publications of that side in politics.
An outcast from politer bread, we attached our small
talents to the forlorn fortunes of our friend. Our occupa-
tion now was to write treason.
Recollections of feelings — -.vhich were all that now
remained from our first boyish heats kindled by the
French Revolution, when, if we were misled, we erred
in the company of some, who are accounted very good
men now — rather than any tendency at this time to
Republican doctrines — assisted us in assuming a stj-le
of writing, while the paper lasted, consonant in no very
under tone — to the right earnest fanaticism of F. Our
cue was now to insinuate, rather than recommend, possible
abdications. Blocks, axes, Whitehill tribunals, were
covered with flowers of so cunning a periphrasis — as
Mr. Bayes says, never naming the ///;«^ directly — that the
keen eye of an Attorney General was insufficient to detect
the lurking snake among them. There were times, indeed,
when we sighed for our more gentleman-like occupation
under Stuart. But with ch.in-fe of masters it h ever change
262
The Imaginative Faculty
of service. Already one paragraph, and another, as we
learned afterwards from a gentleman at the Treasury, had
begun to be marked at that office, with a view of its being
submitted at least to the attention of the proper Law
Officers — when an unlucky, or rather lucky epigram from
our pen, aimed at Sir J s M h,' who was on the
eve of departing for India to reap the fruits of his apostasy
as F. pronounced it (it is hardly worth particularising),
happening to offend the nice sense of Lord, or, as he then
delighted to be called, Citizen Stanhope, deprived F. at
once of the last hopes of a guinea from the last patron
that had stuck by us; and breaking up our establishment,
left us to the safe, but somewhat mortifying, neglect of the
Crown Lawyers. It was about this time, or a little earlier,
that Dan Stuart made that curious confession to us, that
he had "never deliberately walked into an Exhibition at
Somerset House in his life."
BARRENNESS OF THE IMAGINATIVE
FACULTY IN THE PRODUCTIONS
OF MODERN ART.
Hogarth excepted^ can we produce any one painter within
the last fifty years, or since the humour of exhibiting began,
that has treated a story imaginatively? By this we mean,
upon whom his subject has so acted, that it has seemed to
direct him — not to be arranged by him? Any upon whom
its leading or collateral points have impressed themselves
so tyrannically, that he dared not treat it otherwise, lest he
should falsify a revelation? Any that has imparted to his
compositions, not merely so much truth as is enough to con-
vey a story with clearness, but that individualising property,
which should keep the subject so treated distinct in feature
from every other subject, however similar, and to common
apprehensions almost identical ; so as that we might say,
this and this part could have found an appropriate place in
no other picture in the world but this ? Is there any thing
in modern art — v/e will not demand that it should be
[' Sir James Macintosh-]
263
The Essays of Elia
equal — but in any way analogous to what Titian has effected,
in that wondertul bringing together of two times in the
"Ariadne," in the National Gallery? Precipitous, with his
reeling Satyr rout about him, re-peopling and re-illuming
suddenly tne waste places, drunk with a new fury beyond
the grape, Bacchus, born in fire, fire-like flings himself at
the Cretan. This is the time present. With this telling of
the story — an artist, and no ordinary one, might remain
richly proud. Guido, in his harmonious version of it, saw
no further. But from the depth of the imaginative spirit
Titian has recalled past time, and laid it contributory with
the present to one simultaneous effect. With the desert all
ringing with the mad cymbals of his followers, made lucid
with the presence and new offers of a god, — as if uncon-
scious of Bacchus, or but idly casting her eyes as upon some
unconcerning pageant — her soul undistracted from Theseus
— Ariadne is still pacing the solitary shore in as much heart-
silence, and in almost the same local solitude, with which
she awoke at day-break to catch the forlorn last glances of
the sail that bore away the Athenian.
Here are two points miraculously co-uniting; fierce
society, with the feeling of solitude still absolute, noon-day
revelations, with the accidents of the dull grey dawn un-
quenched and lingering; the /r^^f^/" Bacchus, with the pas i
Ariadne; two stories, with double Time; separate, and
harmonising. Had the artist made the woman one shade
less indifferent to the God ; still more, had she expressed a
rapture at his advent, where would have been the story of
the mighty desolation of the heart previous ? merged in the
insipid accident of a flattering offer met with a welcome
acceptance. The broken heart for Theseus was not lightly
to be pieced up by a God.
We have before us a fine rough print, from a picture by
Raphael in the Vatican. It is the Presentation of the new-
born Eve to Adam by the Almighty. A fairer mother of
mankind we might imagine, and a goodlier sire perhaps of
men since born. But these are matters subordinate to the
conception of the situation, displayed in this extraordinary
production. A tolerably modern artist would have been
satisfied with temnering certain raptures of connubial antici-
pation, with a suitable acknowledgment to the Giver of the
blessing, in the countenance of the first bridegroom ; some-
thing like the divided attention of the child (Adam was
264
The Imaginative Faculty
here a child man) between the given toy, and the mother
who had just blest it with the bauble. This is the obvious,
the first-sight view, the superficial. An artist of a higher
grade, considering the awful presence they were in, would
have taken care to subtract something from the expression
of the more human passion, and to heighten the more
spiritual one. This would be as much as an exhibition
goer, from the opening of Somerset House to last year's
show, has been encouraged to look for. It is obvious to
hint at a lower expression yet, in a picture, that for respects
of drawing and colouring, might be deemed not wholly
inadmissible within these art-fostering walls, in which the
raptures should be as ninety-nine, the gratitude as one, or
perhaps Zero ! By neither the one passion nor the other
has Raphael expounded the situation of Adam. Singly
upon his brow sits the absorbing sense of wonder at the
created miracle. The i?ioment is seized by the intuitive
artist, perhaps not self-conscious of his art, in which
neither of the conflicting emotions — a moment how
abstracted — have had time to spring up, or to battle for
indecorous mastery. — We have seen a landscape of a justly
admired neoteric, in which he aimed at delineating a
fiction, one of the most severely beautiful in antiquity —
the gardens of the Hesperides. To do Mr. justice
he had painted a laudable orchard, with fitting seclusion,
and a veritable dragon (of which a Polypheme, by Poussin, is
somehow afac-simile for the situation) looking over into the
world shut out backwards, so that none but a "still-climb-
ing Hercules " could hope to catch a peep at the admired
Ternary of Recluses. No conventual porter could keep
his eyes better than this custos with the "lidless eyes."
He not only sees that none do intrude into that privacy,
but, as clear as daylight, that none but Heraiks aut
Diabolus by any manner of means can. So far all is well.
We have absolute solitute here or nowhere. Ab extra the
damsels are snug enough. But here the artist's courage
seems to have failed him. He began to pity his pretty
charge, and, to comfort the irkscmeness, has peopled their
solitude with a bevy of fair attendants, maids of honour, or
ladies of the bed-chamber, according to the approved
etiquette at a court of the nineteenth century; giving to
the whole scene the air of a fete ckampetre, if we will but
excuse the absence of the gentlemen. This is well, and
265
The Essays of Ella
Watteauish. But what is become of the solitary m) story —
the
Dauglilcr? tliree,
That sing around the golden tree?
This is not the way in which Poussin would have treated
this subject.
The paintings, or rather the stupendous architectural
designs, of a modern artist, have been urged as objections
to the theory of our motto. They are of a character, we
confess, to stagger it. His towered structures are of the
highest order ot the material sublime. Whether they were
dreams, or transcripts of some elder workmanship —
Assyrian ruins old — restored by this mighty artist, they
satisfy our most stretched and craving conceptions of the
glories of the antique world. It is a pity that they were
ever peopled. On that side, the imagination of the artist
halts, and appears defective. Let us examine the point of
the story in the " Belshazzar's Feast." We will introduce
it by an apposite anecdote.
The court historians of the day record, that at the first
dinner given by the late King (then Prince Regent) at the
Pavilion, the following characteristic frolic was played off.
The guests were select and admiring ; the banquet profuse
and admirable; the lights lustrous and oriental; the eye
was perfectly dazzled with the display of plate, among
which the great gold salt-cellar, brought from the regalia
in the Tower for this especial purpose, itself a tower ! stood
conspicuous for its magnitude. And now the Rev.
* * * * the then admired court Chaplain, was proceeding
with the grace, when, at a signal given, the lights were
suddenly overcast, and a huge transparency was discovered,
in which glittered in gold letters —
" Brighton — Earthquake — Swallow-up-alive ! "
Imagine the confusion of the guests ; the Georges and
garters, jewels, bracelets, moulted upon the occasion !
The fans dropped, and picked up the next morning by the
sly court pages ! Mrs. Fitz-what's-her-name fainting, and
the Countess of * * * holding the smelling-bottle, til! the
good-humoured Prince caused harmony to be restored by
calling in fresh candles, and declaring that the whole was
nothing but a pantomime hoax^ got up hv the ingenious
266
The Imaginative Faculty
Mr. Farley, of Covent Garden, from hints which his Royal
Highness himself had furnished ! Then imagine the
infinite applause that followed, the mutual rallyings, the
declarations that "they were not much frightened," of the
assembled galaxy.
The point of time in the picture exactly answers to the
appearance of the transparency in the anecdote. The
huddle, the flutter, the bustle, the escape, the alarm, and
the mock alarm ; the prettinesses heightened by consterna-
tion ; the courtier's fear which was flattery, and the lady's
which was affectation; all that we may conceive to have
taken place in a mob of Brighton courtiers, sympathising
with the well-acted surprise of their sovereign ; all this,
and no more, is exhibited by the well-dressed lords and
ladies in the Hall of Belus. Just this sort of consternation
we have seen among a flock of disquieted wild geese at the
report only of a gun having gone off!
But is this vulgar fright, this mere animal anxiety for the
preservation of their persons, — such as we have witnessed
at a theatre, when a slight alarm of fire has been given — an
adequate exponent of a supernatural terror? the way in
which the finger of God, writing judgments, would have
been met by the withered conscience? There is a human
fear, and a divine fear. The one is disturbed, restless, and
bent upon escape. The other is bowed down, effortless,
passive. When the spirit appeared before Eliphaz in the
visions of the night, and the hair of his flesh stood up, was
it in the thoughts of the Temanite to ring the bell of his
chamber, or to call up the servants? But let us see in the
text what there is to justify all this huddle of vulgar
consternation.
From the words of Daniel it appears that Belshazzar had
made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank
wine before the thousand. The golden and silver vessels
are gorgeously enumerated, with the princes, the kmg's
concubines, and his wives. Then follows —
"In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand,
and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of
the wall of the king's palace ; and the king saw the part of
the hand that wrote. Then the kin^s countenance was
changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints
of his loins were loosened, and his knees smote one against
another."
267
The Essays of Eiia
This is the plain text. By no hint can it be otherwise
inferred, but that the appearance was solely confined to
the faacy of Belshazzar, that his single brain was troubled.
Not a word is spoken of its being seen by any else there
present, not even by the queen herself, who merely under-
takes for the interpretation of the phenomenon, as related
to her, doubtless, by her husband. The lords are simply
said to be astonished; i.e., at the trouble and the change
of countenance in their sovereign. Even the prophet does
not appear to have seen the scroll, which the king saw.
He recalls it only, as Joseph did the Dream to the King of
Egypt. "Then was the part of the hand sent from him
[the Lord], and this writing was written." He speaks of
the phantasm as past.
Then what becomes of this needless multiplication of
the miracle? this message to a royal conscience, singly
expressed — for it was said, "thy kingdom is divided," —
simultaneously impressed upon the fancies of a thousand
courtiers, who were implied in it neither directly nor
grammatically?
But admitting the artist's own version of the story, and
that the sight was seen also by the thousand courtiers — let
It have been visible to all Babylon — as the knees of
Belshazzar were shaken, and his countenance troubled,
even so would the knees of every man in Babylon, and
their countenances, as of an individual man, have been
troubled ; bowed, bent down, so would they have remained,
stupor-fixed, with no thought of struggling with that inevit-
able judgment.
Not all that is optically possible to be seen, is to be
shown in every picture. The eye delightedly dwells upon
the brilliant individualities in a "Marriage at Cana," by
Veronese, or Titian, to the very texture and colour of the
wedding garments, the ring glittering upon the bride's
fingers, the metal and fashion of the wine-pots ; for at such
seasons there is leisure and luxury to be curious. But in a
"day of judgment," or in a "day of lesser horrors, yet
divine," as at the impious feast of Belshazzar, the eye
should see, as the actual eye of an agent or patient in the
immediate scene would see. only in masses and indis-
tinction. Not only the female attire and jewelry exposed
to the critical eye of fashion, as minutely as the dresses in
a lady's magazine, in the criticised picture, — but perhaps
268
The Imaginative Faculty
the curiosities of anatomical science, and studied diversities
of posture in the falling angels and sinners of Michael
Angelo, — have no business in their great subjects. There
was no leisure for them.
By a wise falsification, the great masters of painting got
at their true conclusions ; by not showing the actual
appearances, that is, all that was to be seen at any given
moment by an indifferent eye, but only what the eye might
be supposed to see in the doing or suffering of some
portentous action. Suppose the moment of the swallow-
ing up of Pomi)eii. There they were to be seen — houses,
columns, architectural proportions, differences of public
and private buildings, men and women at their standing
occupations, the diversified thousand postures, attitudes,
dresses, in some confusion truly, but physically they were
visible. But what eye saw them at that eclipsing moment,
which reduces confusion to a kind of unity, and when the
senses are upturned from their proprieties, when sight and
hearing are a feeling only ? A thousand years have passed,
and we are at leisure to contemplate the weaver fixed
standing at his shuttle, the baker at his oven, and to turn
over with antiquarian coolness the pots and pans of
Pompeii.
"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou. Moon, in
the valley of Ajalon." VVho, in reading this magnificent
Hebraism, in his conception, sees aught but the heroic
son of Nun, with the outstretched arm, and the greater
and lesser light obsequious? Doubtless there were to be
seen hill and dale, and chariots and horsemen, on open
plain, or winding by secret defiles, and all the circumstances
and stratagems of war. But whose eyes would have been
conscious of this array at the interposition of the synchronic
miracle? Yet in the picture of this subject by the artist
of the " Belshazzar's Feast" — no ignoble work either — the
marshalling and landscape of the war is everything, the
miracle sinks into an anecdote of the day; and the eye
may " dart though rank and file traverse " for some
minutes^ before it shall discover, among his armed
followers, which is Joshua ! Not modem art alone, but
ancient, where only it is to be found if anywhere, can be
detected erring, from defect of this imaginative faculty.
The world has nothing to show of the preternatural in
painting, transcending the figure of Lazarus bursting his
269
The Essays of Elia
grave-clothes, in the great picture at Angerstein's. It
seems a thing between two beings. A ghastly horror at
itself struggles with newly - apprehending gratitude at
second life bestowed. It cannot forget that it was a
ghost. It has hardly felt that it is a body. It has to tell
of the world of spirits. — Was it from a feeling, that the
crowd of half-impassioned by-standers, and the still more
irrelevant herd of passers-by at a distance, who have not
heard or but faintly have been told of the passing miracle,
admirable as they are in design and hue — for it is a
glorified work — do not respond adequately to the action —
that the single figure of the Lazarus has been attributed to
Michael Angelo, and the mighty Sebastian unfairly robbed
of the fame of the greater half of the interest? Now that
there were not indifferent passers-by, within actual scope of
the eyes of those present at the miracle, to whom the sound
of it had but faintly, or not at all, reached, it would be hardi-
hood to deny ; but would they see them ? oi can the mind
in the conception of it admit of such unconcerning objects ?
can it think of them at all? or what associating league to
the imagination can there be between the seers, and the
seers not, of a presential miracle ?
Were an artist to paint upon demand a picture of a
Dryad, we will ask whether, in the present low state of
expectation, the patron would not, or ought not be fully
satisfied with a beautiful naked figure recumbent under
wide-stretched oaks? Disseat those woods, and place the
same figure among fountains, and fall of pellucid water,
and you have a — Naiad ! Not so in a rough print we have
seen after Julio Romano, we think — for it is long since —
there, by no process, with mere change of scene, could the
figure have reciprocated characters. Long, grotesque,
fantastic, yet with a grace of her own, beautiful in con-
volution and distortion, linked to her connatural tree, co-
twisting with its limbs her own, till both seemed either —
these, animated branches; those, disanimated members —
yet the animal and vegetable lives sufficiently kept distinct
— his Dryid lay — an approximation of two natures, which
to conceive, it must be seen ; analogous to, not the same
with, the delicacies of Ovi'iian transformations.
To the lowest subjects, and, to a superficial comprehen-
sion, the most barren, the Great Masters gave loftiness and
fruitfulness. The large eye of genius saw in the meanness
270
The Imaginative Faculty
of present objects their capabilities of treatment from
their relations to some grand Past or Future. How has
Raphael — we must still linger about the Vatican — treated
the humble craft of the ship-builder, in his " Building of
the Ark ? " It is in that scriptural series, to which we have
referred, and which, judging from some fine rough old
graphic sketches of them which we possess, seem to be of
a higher and more poetic grade than even the Cartoons.
The dim of sight are the timid and the shrinking. There
is a cowardice in modern art. As the Frenchmen, of wiiom
Coleridge's friend made the prophetic guess at Rome,
from the beard and horns of the Moses of Michael Angelo
collected no inferences beyond that of a He Goat and a
Cornuto; so from this subject, of mere mechanic promise,
it would instinctively turn away, as from one incapable
of investiture with any grandeur. The dock-yards at
Woolwich would object derogatory associations. The
depot at Chatham would be the mote and the beam in its
intellectual ej'e. But not to the nautical preparations in
the shipyards of Civita Vecchia did Raphael look for
instructions, when he imagined the Building of the Vessel
that was to be conservatory of the wrecks of the species of
drowned mankind. In the intensity of the action, he keeps
ever out of sight the meanness of the operation. There is
the Patriarch, in calm forethought, and with holy pre-
science, giving directions. And there are his agents —
the solitary but sufficient Three — hewing, sawing, every
one with the might and earnestness of a Demiurgus ;
under some instinctive rather than technical guidance !
giant-muscled; every one a Hercules, or liker to those
Vulcanian Three, that in sounding caverns under Mongi-
bello wrought in fire — Brontes, and black Steropes, and
Pyracmon. So work the workmen that should repair a
world !
Artists again err in the confounding of poetic with pictorial
subjects. In the latter, the exterior accidents are nearly
everything, the unseen qualities as nothing. Othello's
colour — the infirmities and corpulence of a Sir Jolin
Falstaff — do they haunt us perpetually in the reading ? or
are they obtruded upon our conceptions one time for
ninety-nine that we are lost in admiration at the respective
moral or intellectual attributes of the character? But in a
picture Othello is always a Blackamoor ; and the other
271
The Essays of Eiia
only Plump Jack. Deeply corporealised, and enchained
hopelessly in the grovelling fetters of externality, must be
the mind, to which, in its better moments, the image of
the high-souled, high-intelligenced Quixote — the errant
Star of Knighthood, made more tender by eclipse — has
never presented itself, divested from the unhallowed
acrompaniinent of a Sancho, or a rabblement at the heels
of Rosinante. That man has read his book by halves ;
he has laughed, mistaking his author's purport, which was
— tears. The artist that pictures Quixote — (and it is in
this degrading point tliat he is every season held up at our
Exhibitions) in the shallow hope of exciting mirth, would
have joined the rabble at the heels of his starved steed.
We wish not to see that counterfeited, which we would nc t
have wished to see in the reality. Conscious of the heroic
inside of the noble Quixote, who, on hearing that his
withered person was passing, would have stepped over his
threshold to gaze upon his forlorn habiliments, and the
"strange bed-fellows which misery brings a man acquainted
with ? " Shade of Cervantes ! who in thy Second Part could
put into the mouth of thy Quixote those high aspirations of
a super-chivalrous gallantry, where he replies to one of the
shepherdesses, apprehensive that he would spoil their pretty
net-works, and inviting him to be a guest with them, in
iccents like these : " Truly, fairest Lady, Actaeon was not
more astonished when he saw Diana bathing herself at the
fountain, than I have been in beholding yoTr beauty: I
•commend the manner of your pastime, and thank you for
your kind offers ; and, if I may serve you, so I may be sure
you will be obeyed, you may command me : for my profes-
sion is this, To show myself thankful, and a doer of good
to all sorts of people, especially of the rank that your person
shows you to be ; and if those nets, as they take up but a
little piece of ground, should take up the whole weld, I
would seek out new worlds to pass through, rather than
break them : and (he adds) that you may give credit to
this my exaggeration, behold at least he that promiseth you
this, is Don Quixote de la Mancha, if haply this name hath
come to your hearing." Illustrious Romancer! were the
"fine frenzies," which possessed the brain of thy own
Quixote, a fit subject, as in this Second Part, to be exposed
to the jeers of Duennas and Serving Men ? to be monstered,
and shown up at the heartless banquets of great men ?
272
The Imaginative Faculty
Was that pitiable infirmity, which in thy First Part misleads
him, always from within, into half-ludicrous, but more than
half-compassionable and admirable errors, not infliction
enough from heaven, that men by studied artifices must
devise and practise upon the humour, to inflame where they
should soothe it? Why, Goneril vi'ould have blushed to
practise upon the abdicated king at this rate, and the she-
wolf Regan not have endured to play the pranks upon his
fled wits, which thou hast made thy Quixote suffer in
Duchesses' halls, and at the hands of that unworthy noble-
man.^
In the First Adventures, even, it needed all the art of
the most consummate artist in the Book way that the world
hath yet seen, to keep up in the mind of the reader the
heroic attributes of the character without relaxing ; so as
absolutely that they shall suffer no alloy from the debasing
fellowship of the clown. If it ever obtrudes itself as a dis-
harmony, are we inclined to laugh ; or not, rather, to indulge
a contrary emotion? — Cervantes, stung, perchance, by the
relish with which his Reading Public had received the
fooleries of the man, more to their palates than the
generosities of the master, in the sequel let his pen run riot,
lost the harmony and the balance, and sacrificed a great
idea to the taste of his contemporaries. We know that in
the present day the Knight has fewer admirers than the
Squire. Anticipating, what did actually happen to him —
as afterwards it did to his scarce inferior follower, the Author
of "Guzman de Alfarache" — that some less knowing hand
would prevent him by a spurious Second Part; and judging,
that it would be easier for his competitor to out-bid him in
the comicalities, than in the romance, of his work, he
abandoned his Knight, and has fairly set up the Squire for
his Hero. For what else has he unsealed the eyes of Sancho ;
and instead of that twilight state of semi-insanity — the mad-
ness at second-hand — the contagion, caught from a stronger
mind infected — that war between native cunning, and
hereditary deference, with which he has hitherto accom-
panied his master — two for a pair almost — does he
substitute a downright Knave, with open eyes, for his own
ends only following a confessed Madman ; and offering at
one time to lay, if not actually laying, hands upon him !
' Yet from this Second Part, our cried-up pictures are mostly selected,
the waiting-women with beards, &c.
s 273
The Essays of Elia
From the moment that Sancho loses his reverence, Don
Quixote is become — a treatable lunatic. Our artists handle
him accordingly.
REJOICINGS UPON THE NEW YEAR'S
COMING OF AGE
The Old Year being dead, and the New Year coming of
age, which he does, by Calendar Law, as soon as the
breath is out of the old gentleman's body, nothing would
serve the young spark but he must give a dinner upon the
occasion, to which all the Days in the year were invited.
The Festivals, whom he deputed as his stewards, were
mightily taken with the notion. They had been engaged
time out of mind, they said, in providing mirth and good
cheer for mortals below; and it was time they should have
a taste of their own bounty. It was stiffly debated among
them, whether the Fasts should be admitted. Some said,
the appearance of such lean, starved guests, with their
mortified faces, would pervert the ends of the meeting.
But the objection was over-ruled by Christijias Day, who
had a design upon Ash Wednesday (as you shall hear), and
a mighty desire to see how the Old Domine would behave
himself in his cups. Only the Vigils were requested to
come with their lanterns, to liglit the gentlefolks home at
night.
All the Days came to their day. Covers were provided
for three hundred and sixty five guests at the principal
table; with an occasional knife and fork at the side-board
for the Twenty- Ni7ith of February.
I should have told you, that cards ol invitation had
been issued. The carriers v/ere the Hours; twelve little,
men-y, whirligig footpages, as you should desire to see,
that went all round, and found out the persons invited well
enough, with the exception of Easier Day, Shrove Tuesday,
and a few such Moveables, who had lately shifted their
quarters.
Well, they all met at last, foul Days, fine Days, all sorts
of Days, and a rare din they made of it. There was nothing
but. Hail! fellow Day, — well met — brother Day — sister
Day, — only Lady Day kept a little on the aloof, and
seemed somewhat scornful. Yet some said, Twelfth Day
274
New Year's Coming of Age
cut her out and out, for she came in a tiffany suit, white
and gold, like a queen on a frost-cake, all royal, glittering
and Epiphanons, The rest came, some in green, some in
white, — but old Lent and Jus family were not yet out of
mourning. Rainy Days came in, dripping ; and sun-shiny
Days helped them to change their stockings. Wedding
Day was there in his marriage finery, a little the worse for
wear. Pay Day came late, as he always does; 2iVi^ Dooms-
day sent word — he might be expected.
April Fool (as my young lord's jester) took upon himself
to marshal the guests, and wild work he made it. It would
have posed old Erra Pater to have found out any given Day
in the year, to erect a scheme upon — good Days, bad
Days, were so shuffled together, to the confounding of all
sober horoscopy.
Tie had stuck the Twenty First of June next to the
Twenty Second of December, and the former looked like
a Maypole siding a marrow-bone. Ash Wednesday got
wedged in (as was concerted) betwixt Christmas and Lord
Mayor s days. Lord ! how he laid about him ! Nothing
but barons of beef and turkeys would go down with him —
to the great greasing and detriment of his new sackcloth
bib and tucker. And still Christmas Day was at his
elbow, plying him with the wassail-bowl, till he roared, and
hiccupp'd, and protested there v,as no faith in dried ling,
but commended it to the devil for a sour, windy,
acrimonious, censorious, hy-po-crit-crit-critical mess, and
no dish for a gentleman. Then he dipt his fist into the
middle of the great custard that stood before his left-hand
neighbour, and daubed his hungry beard, all over with it,
till you would have taken him for the Last Day in December,
It so hung in icicles.
At another pirt of the table, Shrove Tuesday was helping
the Second of September to some cock broth, — which
courtesy the latter returned with the delicate thigh of a
hen pheasant — so there was no love lost for that matter.
The Last of L^ent was spunging upon Shrove-tide's pan-
cakes ; which April Fool perceiving, told him he did well,
for pancakes were proper to a goodfr)--day.
In another part, a hubbub arose about the Thirtieth of
January, who, it seems, being a sour puritanic character,
that thought nobody's meat good or sanctified enough for
him, had smuggled into the room a call's head, vhich he
2/5
The Essays of Elia
had had cooked at home for that purpose, thinking to
feast thereon incontinently; but as it lay in the dish MarcA
manywiathers, who is a very fine lady, and subject to the
meagrims, screamed out there was a " human head in the
platter," and raved about Herodias' daughter to that
degree, that the obnoxious viand was obliged to be
removed ; nor did she recover her stomach till she had
gulped down a Restorative^ confected of Oak Apple, which
the merry Twenty Ninth of May always carries about with
him for that purpose.
The King's health ' being called for after this, a notable
dispute arose between the Ttvelfth of August (a zealous
old Whig gentlewoman), and the T^venty Third of April,
(a new-fangled lady of the Tory stamp), as to which of
them should have the honour to propose it. August grew
hot upon the matter, affirming time out of mind the
prescriptive right to have lain with her, till her rival had
basely supplanted her ; whom she represented as little
better than a z?:^// mistress, who went z!oovL\.\r\ fine clothes,
while she (the legitimate Birthday) had scarcely a rag,
&c.
April Fool, being made mediator, confirmed the rightin
the strongest form of words to the appellant, but decided
for peace' sake that the exercise of it should remain with
the present possessor. At the same time, he slily rounded
the first lady in the ear, that an action might lie against the
Crown for bi-geny.
It beginning to grow a little duskish. Candlemas lustily
bawled out for lights, which was opposed by all the Days,
who protested against burning daylight. Then fair water
was handed round in silver ewers, and the same lady was
observed to take an unusual time in Washing herself.
May Day, with that sweetness which is peculiar to her,
in a neat speech proposing the health of the founder,
crowned her goblet (and by her example the rest of the
company) with garlands. This being done, the lordly New
Year from the upper end of the table, in a cordial but
somewhat lofty tone, returned thanks. He felt proud on
an occasion of meeting so many of his worthy father's late
tenants, promised to improve their farms, and at the same
time to abate (if any thing was found unreasonable) in
their rents.
* The late King.
276
New Year s Coming of Age
At the mention of this, the four Quarter Days in-
voluntarily looked at each other, and smiled ; April Fool
whistled to an old tune of " New Brooms ; " and a surly old
rebel at the further end of the table (who was discovered
to be no other than the Fifth of November) muttered out,
distinctly enough to be heard by the whole company words
to this effect, that " when the old one is gone, he is a fool
that looks for a better." Which rudeness of his, the
guests resenting, unanimously voted his expulsion ; and
the male-content was thrust out neck and heels into the
cellar, as the properest place for such a boutefeu and fire-
brand as he had shown himself to be.
Order being restored — the young lord (who, to say
truth, had been a little rufiled, and put beside his oratory)
in as few, and yet as obliging words as possible, assured
them of entire welcome; and, with a graceful turn, singling
out poor Twenty Ninth of February^ that had sate all this
while mumchance at the side-board, begged to couple his
health with that of the good company before him — which
he drank accordingly ; observing, that he had not seen his
honest face any time these four years — with a number of
endearing expressions besides. At the same time, remov-
ing the solitary Day from the forlorn seat which hod been
assigned him, he stationed him at his own board, some-
where between the Greek Calends and Latter Lammas.
Ash Wednesday, being now called upon for a song, with
his eyes fast stuck in his head, and as well as the Canary
he had swallowed would give him leave, struck up a Carol,
which Christmas Day had taught him for the nonce ; and
was followed by the latter, who gave "Miserere" in fine
style, hitting off the mumping notes and lengthened drawl
of Old Mortification with infinite humour. April Fool
swore they had exchanged conditions : but Good Friday
was observed to look extremely grave ; and Sufiday held
her fan before her face, that she might not be seen to
smile.
Shrove-iide, Lord Mayor's Day, and April Fool next
joined in a glee —
Which is the properest day to drink ?
in which all the Days chiming in, made a merry burden.
They next fell to quibbles and conundrums. The
question being proposed, who had the greatest number
■277
The Essays of Elia
of followers — the Quarter Days said, there could be no
question as to that ; lor they had all the creditors in the
world dogging their heels. But April Fool gave it in
favour of the Forty Days before Easter; because the
debtors in all cases outnumbered the creditors, and they
kept lent all the year.
All this while, Valentine's Day kept courting pretty Alay,
who sate next him, slipping amorous biUeis-doux under the
table till the Dog Days (who are naturally of a warm con-
stitution) began to be jealous, and to bark and rage
exceedingly. April Fool, who likes a bit of sport above
measure, and had some pretensions to the lady besides, as
being but a cousin once removed, — clapped and halloo'd
them on ; and as fast as their indignation cooled, those
mad wags, the Ernber Days, were at it with their bellows,
to blow it into a tlanie; and all was in a fervent; till old
Madam Septuagesima (who boasts herself the Mother oj
tlie Days) wisely divc rt-jd the conversation with a tedious
tale of the loves which she could reckon when she was
young ; and of one Master Rogation Day in particular,
who was for ever putting the question to her; but she kept
him at a distance, as the chronacle would tell — by which
I apprehend she meant the Almanack. Then she rambled
on to the Days that were gone, iht. good old Days, and so to
the Days before the Flood — which plainly showed her old
head to be little better than crazed and doited.
Day being ended, the Days called for their cloaks and
great coats, and took their leaves. Lord Mayor's Day
wenr off in a Mist, as usual ; Shortest Day in a deep black
Fog, that wrapt the little gentleman all round like a hedge-
hog. Two Vigils — so watchmen are called in heaven —
saw Christmas Day safe home — they had been used to the
business before. Another Vigil — a stout, sturdy patrole,
called the Eve of Si. Christopher — seeing Ash Wednesday in
a condition little better than he should be — e'enwhipt him
over his shoulders, pick-a-back fashion, and Old Mortifua-
tion went floating home singing —
On the bars back do I fly
and a number of old snatches besides, between drunk and
sober, but very few Aves or Penitentiaries (you may believe
me) were among them. Longest Day set off westward in
bjautiful crimson and gold — the rest, some in one fashion,
278
The Wedding
some in another ; but Valentine and pretty May took their
departure together in one of the prettiest silvery twilights
a Lover's Day could wish to set in.
THE WEDDING.
I DO not know when I have been better pleased than at
being invited last week to be present at the wedding of a
friend's daughter. I like to make one at these ceremonies,
which to us old people give back our youth in a manner,
and restore our gayest season, in the remembrance of our
own success, or the regrets, scarcely less tender, of our own
youthful disappointments, in this point of a settlement.
On these occasions I am sure to be in good-humour for a
week or two after, and enjoy a reflected hont. y-moon.
Being without a family, I am flattered with these temporary
adoptions into a friend's family ; I feel a sort of cousinhood
or uncleship, for the season ; I am inducted into degrees
of aflfinity ; and, in the participated socialities of the little
community, I lay down for a brief while my solitary
bachelorship. I carry this humour so far, that I take it
unkindly to be left out, even when a funeral is going on in
the house of a dear friend. But to my subject.
The union itself had been long settled, but its celebra-
tion had been hitherto deferred, to an almost unreasonable
state of suspense in the lovers, by some invincible prejudices
which the bride's father had unhappily contracted upon
the subject of the too early marriages of females. He has
been lecturing any time these five years — for to that length
the courtship has been protracted — upon the propriety of
putting off the solemnity, till the lady should have com-
pleted her five and twentieth year. We all began to be
afraid that a suit, which as yet had abated of none of its
ardours, might at last be lingered on, till passion had time
to cool, and love go out in the experiment. But a little
wheedling on the part of his wife, who was by no means
a party to these overstrained notions, joineci to some serious
expostulations on that of his friends, who, from the growing
infirmities of the old gentleman, could not promise ourselves
many years' enjoyment of his company, and were anxious
to bring matters to a conclusion during his life-time, at
279
The Essays of Elia
length prevailed ; and on Monday last the daughter of my
old friend, Admiral ^ having attained the womanly age
of nineteen, was conducted to the church by her pleasant
cousin J ,^ who told some few years older.
Before the youthful part of my female readers express
their indignation at the abominable loss of time occasioned
to the lovers by the preposterous notions of my old friend,
they will do well to consider the reluctance which a fond
parent naturally feels at parting with his child. To this
unwillingness, I believe, in most cases may be traced the
difference of opinion on this point between child and
parent, whatever pretences of interest or prudence may be
held out to cover it. The hardheartedness of fathers is a
fine theme for romance writers, a sure and moving topic ;
but is there not something untender, to say no more of it,
in the hurry which a beloved child is sometimes in to tear
herself from the paternal stock, and commit herself to
strange graftings? The case is heightened where the lady,
as in the present instance, happens to be an only child. I
do not understand these matters experimentally, but I can
make a shrewd guess at the wounded pride of a parent
upon these occasions. It is no new observation, I believe,
that a lover in most cases has no rival so much to be feared
as the father. Certainly there is a jealousy in unparallel
subjects^ which is little less heart-rending than the passion
which we more strictly christen by that name. Mothers'
scruples are more easily got over ; for this reason, I
suppose, that the protection transferred to a husband is
less a derogation and a loss to their authority than to the
paternal. Mothers, besides, have a trembling foresight,
which paints the inconveniences (impossible to be con-
ceived in the same degree by the other parent) of a life
of forlorn celibacy, which the refusal of a tolerable match
may entail upon their child. Mothers' instinct is a surer
guide here, than the cold reasonings of a father on such a
topic. To this instinct may be imputed, and by it alone
may be excused, the unbeseeming artifices, by which some
wives push on the matrimonial projects of their daughters,
which the husband, however, approving, shall entertain
with comparative indifi"erence. A little shamelessness on
this head is pardonable. With this explanation, forward-
ness becomes a grace, and maternal importunity receives
[' Admiral Burncy.] ['John Payne.]
The Wedding
the name of a virtue. — But the parson stays, while I
preposterously assume his office ; I am preaching, while
the bride is on the threshold.
Nor let any of my female readers suppose that the
sage reflections which have just escaped me have the
obliquest tendency of application to the young lady, who,
it will be seen, is about to venture upon a change in her
condition, at a mature and competent age, and not without
the fullest approbation of all parties. I only deprecate
very hasty marriages.
It had been fixed that the ceremony should be gone
through at an early hour, to give time for a little
deieune afterwards, to which a select party of friends had
been invited. We were in church a little before the clock
struck eight.
Nothing could be more judicious or graceful than the
dress of the bride-maids — the three charming Miss
Foresters — on this morning. To give the bride an
opportunity of shining singly, they had come habited all in
green. I am ill at describing female apparel; but while
she stood at the altar in vestments white and candid as her
thoughts, a sacrificial whiteness, they assisted in robes, such
as might become Diana's nymphs — Foresters indeed — as
such who had not yet come to the resolution of putting
off" cold virginity. These young maids, not being so blest
as to have a mother living, I am told, keep single for
their father's sake, and live all together so happy with
their remaining parent, that the hearts of their lovers
are ever broken with the prospect (so inauspicious
to their hopes) of such uninterrupted and provoking
home-comfort. Gallant girls ! each a victim worthy of
Iphigenia !
I do not know what business I have to be present in solemn
places. I cannot divest me of an unseasonable disposition
to levity upon the most awful occasions. I was never cut
out for a public functionary. Ceremony and I have long
shaken hands ; but I could not resist the importunities of
the young lady's father, whose gout unhappily confined him
at home, to act as parent on this occasion, and give away
the bride. Something ludicrous occurred to me at this
most serious of all moments — a sense of my unfitness to
have the disposal, even in imagination, of the sweet young
creature beside me. I fear I was betrayed to some light-
281
The Essays of Hlia
oess, for the awful eye of the parson — and the rector's eye
of Saint Mildred's in the Poultry is no trifle of a rebuke —
was upon me in an instant, souring my incipient jest to the
tristful severities of a funeral.
This was the only misbehaviour which I can plead to
upon tliis solemn occasion, unless what was objected to me
after the ceremony by one of the handsome Miss T s,
be accounted a solecism. She was pleased to say that she
had never seen a gentleman before me give away a bride
in Kack. Now black has been my ordinary apparel so
long — indeed I take it to be the proper costume of an
author — the stage sanctions it — that to have appeared in
some lighter colour would have raised more mirth at my
expense, than the anomaly had created censure. But I could
perceive that the bride's mother, and some elderly ladies
present (God bless them !) would have been well content, if
I had come in any other colour than that. But I got over the
omen by a lucky apologue, which I remembered out of
Pilpay, or some Indian author, of all the birds being
invited to the linnets' wedding, at which, when all the rest
came in their gayest feathers, the raven alone apologised
for his cloak because " he had no other." This tolerably
reconciled the elders. But with the young people all was
merriment, and shaking of hands, and congratulations, and
kissing away the bride's tears, and kissings from her in
return, till a young lady, who assumed some experience in
these matters, having worn the nuptial bands some four or
five uecKS longer than her friend, rescued her, archly
observing, with half an eye upon the bridegroom, that at
this rate she would have "none left."
My friend the admiral was in fine wig and buckle on this
occasion — a striking contrast to his usual neglect of
personal appearance. He did not once shove up his
borrowed locks (his custom ever at his morning studies) to
betray the few grey stragglers of his own beneath them.
He wore an aspect of thoughtful satisfaction. I trembled
for the hour, which at length approached, when after a
protracted breakfast of three hours — if stores of cold fowls,
tongues, hams, botargoes, dried fruits, wines, cordials, &c.,
can deserve so meagre an appellation — the coach wr.s
announced, wluch was come to carry off the bride and
bridegroom for a season (as custom has scnsii)ly or-
dained) into the coumty; iii)on which design, wishing
282
The Wedding
them a felicitous journey, let us return to the assembled
guests.
As when a well-graced actor leaves the stage,
The eyes of men
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
SO idly did we bend our eyes upon one another, when the
chief performers in the mornings pageant had vanished.
None told his tale. None sipped her glass. The poor
Admiral made an effort — it was not much. I nad
anticipated so far. Even the infinity of full satisfaction,
that had betrayed iiself throuigh the prim looks and quiet
deportment of his lady, began to wane into something of
misgiving. No one knew whecher to take tiieir leaves or
stay. We seemed assembled upon a silly occasion. In
this crisis, betwixt tarrying and departure, 1 iiiUbt do justice
to a foolish talent of mine, which had otherwise like to
have brought me into disgrace in the fore-part of the day ;
I mean a power, in any emergency, of thinking and giving
vent to all manner of strange nonsense. In this awkward
dilemma I found it sovereign. I rattled off some of my
most excellent absurdities. All were willing to be
relieved, at any expense of reason, from the pressure of
the intolerable vacuum which had succeeded to the
morning bustle. By this means I was fortunate in keeping
together the better part of the company to a late hour : and
a rubber of whist (the Admiral's favourite game) with some
rare strokes of chance as well as skill, which came
opportunely on his side — lengthened out till midnight —
dismissed the old gentlemen at last to his bed with coin-
paratively easy spirits.
I have been at my old friend's various times since. I
do not know a visiting place where every guest is so
perfectly at his ease ; nowhere, where harmony is so
strangely the result of confusion. Every body is at cross
purposes, yet the effect is so much better than uniformity.
Contradictory orders; servants pulling one way; master
and mistress driving some other, yet both diverse ; visitors
huddled up in corners ; chairs unsymmetnsed ; candles dis-
posed by chance ; meals at odd hours, tea and supper at
once, or the latter preceding the former ; the host and the
guest conferring, yet each upon a different topic, each
uniierstanding himself, neither trying lo understand or
2u3
The Essays of Elia
hear the other ; draughts and politics, chess and political
economy, cards and conversation on nautical matters,
going on at once, without the hope, or indeed the wish, of
distinguishing them, make it altogether the most perfect
Concordia discors you shall meet with. Yet somehow the
old house is not quite what it should be. The Admiral
still enjoys his pipe, but he has no Miss Emily to fill it for
him. The instrument stands where it stood, but she is
gone, whose delicate touch could sometimes for a short
minute appease the warring elements. He has learnt, as
Marvel expresses it, to "make his destiny his choice." He
bears bravely up, but he does not come out with his flashes
of wild wit so thick as formerly. His sea songs seldoaier
escape him. His wife, too, looks as if she wanted some
younger body to scold and set to rights. We all miss a
junior presence. It is wonderful how one young maiden
freshens up, and keeps green, the paternal roof. Old and
young seem to have an interest in her, so long as she is
not absolutely disposed of. The youthfulness of the house
is flowc, Emily is married.
THE CHILD ANGEL.
A DREAM.
I CHANCED upon the prettiest, oddest, fantastical thing of
a dream the other night, that you shall hear of. I had
been reading the " Loves of the Angels," and went to bed
with my head full of speculations, suggested by that extra-
ordinary legend. It had given birth to innumerable con-
jectures ; and, I remember, the last waking thought, which
I gave expression to on my pillow, was a sort of wonder
" what could come of it."
I was suddenly transported, how or whither I could
scarcely make out — but to some celestial region. It was
not the real heavens neither — not the downright Bible
heaven — but a kind of fairyland heaven, about which a
poor human fancy may have leave to sport and air itself, I
will hope, without presui-.pnon.
Methought — what wild things dreams are ! — I was
284
The Child Angel
present — at what would you imagine ? — at an angel's
gossiping.
Whence it came, or how it came, or who bid it come, or
whether it came purely of its own head, neither you nor I
know — but there lay, sure enough, wrapt in its little cloudy
swaddling bands — a Child Angel.
Sun-threads — filmy beams — ran through the celestial
napery of what seerr.ed its princely cradle. All the winged
orders hovered round, watching when the new-born should
open its yet closed eyes ; which, when it did, first one, and
then the other — with a solicitude and apprehension, yet
not such as, stained with fear, dim the expanding eye-lids
of mortal infants, but as if to explore its path in those its
unhereditary palaces — what an inextinguishable titter that
time spared not celestial visages ! Nor wanted there to
my seeming — O the inexplicable simpleness of dreams ! —
bowls of that cheering nectar,
— which mortals caudle call below.
Nor were wanting faces of female miriistrants, — stricken
in years, as it might seem, — so dexterous were those
heavenly attendants to counterfeit kindly similitudes of
earth, to greet, with terrestrial child-rites the yoMug present,
which earth had made to heaven.
Then were celestial harpings heard, not in full symphony
as those by which the spheres are tutored ; but, as loudest
instruments on earth speak oftentimes, muffled ; so to ac-
commodate their sound the better to the weak ears of the
imperfect-born. And, with the noise of those subdued
soundings, the Angelet sprang forth, fluttering its rudiments
of pinions — but forthwith flagged and was recovered into
the arms of those full-winged angels. And a wonder it was
to see how, as years went round in heaven — a year in dreams
is as a day — continually its white shoulders put forth buds of
wings, but, wanting the perfect angelic nutriment, anon was
shorn of its aspiring, and fell fluttering — still caught by angel
hands — for ever to put forth shoots, and to fall fluttering, be-
cause its birth was not of the unmixed vigour of heaven.
And a name was given to the Babe Angel, and it was to
be called Ge-Urania, because its production was of earth
and heaven.
And it could not taste of death, by reason of its adoption
into immortal palaces: but it was to know weakness, and
The Essays of Elia
reliance, and the shadow of human imbecility; and it went
with a lame gait; but io its goings it exceeded all mortal
children in grace and swiftness. Then pity first sprang up
in angelic bosoms ; and yearnings (like the human) touched
them at the sight of the immortal lame one.
And with pain did then first those Intuitive Essences,
with pain and strife to their natures (not grief), put back
their bright intelligences, and reduce their ethereal minds,
schooling them to degrees and slower processes, so to adapt
their lessons to the gradual illumination (as must needs be)
of the half-earth-born; and what intuitive notices they
could not repel (by reason that their nature is, to know afl
things at once), the half-heavenly novice, by the better part
of its nature, aspired to receive into its understanding; so
that Humility and Aspiration went on even-naced in the
instruction of the glorious Amphibium.
But, by reason that Mature Humanity is too gross to
breatiie the air of that super-subtile region, its portion was,
and is, to be a child for ever.
And because the human part of it might not press into
the heart and inwards of the palace of its adoption, those
full-natured angels tended it by turns in the purlieus of the
palace, where were shady groves and rivulets, like this green
earth from which it came : so Love, with Voluntary Humility,
waited upon the entertainment of the new-adopted.
And myriads of years rolled round (in dreams Time is
nothing), and still it kept, and is to keep, perpetual child-
hood, and is the Tutelar Genius of Childhood upon earth,
and still goes lame and lovely.
By the banks of the river Pison is seen, lone-sitting by the
grave of the terrestrial Adah, whom the angel Nadir loved,
a Child ; but not the same which I saw in heaven. A
mournful hue overcasts its lineaments; nevertheless, a
correspondency is between the child by the grave, and that
celestial orphan, whom I saw above; and the dimness of
the grief upon the heavenly, is a shadow or emblem of that
which stains the beauty of" the terrestrial. And this corre-
spondency is not to be understood but by dreams.
And in the archives of heaven I had grace to read, how
that once the angel Nadir, being exiled from his place for
mortal pission, upspringing on the wings of parental love
(such power had parental love for a moment to suspend
the else-irrevocable law) appeared for a brief instant in his
286
Old China
station; and, depositing a wondrous Birth, straightway dis-
appeared, and the palaces knew him no more. And this
charge was the self-same Babe, who goeth lame and lovely
— but Adah sleepeth by the river Pison.
OLD CHINA.
I HAVE an almost feminine partiality for old china. When
1 go to see any great house, I enquire for the china-closet,
and next for the picture gallery. 1 cannot defend the order
of preference, but by saying, that we have all some taste or
other, of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering
distinctly that it was an acquired one. I can call to mind
the first play, and the first exhibition, that I was taken to;
but I am not conscious of a time when china jars and
saucers were introduced into my imagination.
I had no repugnance then — why should I now have? —
to those little, lawless, azure-tinctured grotesques, that
under the notion of men and women, float about, uncir-
cumscribed by any element, in that world before perspective
— a china tea-cup.
I like to see my old friends — whom distance cannot
diminish — figuring up in the air (so they appear to our
optics), yet on terra firma still — for so we must in courtesy
interpret that speck of deeper blue, — which the decorous
artist, to prevent absurdity, had made to spring up beneath
their sandals.
I love the men with women's faces, and the women, if
possible, with still more womanish expressions.
Here is a young and courtly Mandarin, handing tea to
a lady from a salver — two miles off. See how distance
seems to set off respect ! And here the same lady, or
another — for likeness is identity on tea-cups — is stepping
into a little fairy boat, moored on the hither side of this
calm garden river, with a dainty mincing foot, which in a
right angle of incidence (as angles go in our world) must
infallibly land her in the midst of a flowery mead — a
furlong off on the other side of the same strange stream !
Farther on — if far or near can be predicated of their
world — see horses, trees, pagodas, dancing the hays.
Here — a cow and rabbit couchant, and co-extensive —
287
The Essays of Elia
so objects show, seen through the lucid atmosphere of
fine Cathay.
I was pointing out to my cousin last evening, over oui
Hyson, (which we are old fashioned enough to drink un-
mixed still of an afternoon) some of these spedosa miracula
upon a set of extraordinary old blue china (a recent pur-
chase) which we were now for the first time using ; and
could not help remarking, how favourable circumstances
had been to us of late years, that we could afford to please
the eye sometimes with trifles of this sort — when a passing
sentiment seemed to overshade the brows of my com-
panion. I am quick at detecting these summer clouds in
Bridget.
"I wish the good old times would come again," she
said, " when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean,
that I want to be poor; but there was a middle state" —
so she was pleased to ramble on, — "in which I am sure
we were a great deal happier. A purchase is but a
purchase, now that you have money enough and to spare.
Formerly it used to be a triumph. When we coveted a
cheap luxury (and, O ! how much ado I had to get you to con-
sent in those times !) — we were used to have a debate two or
three days before, and to weigh the for and against, and
think what we might spare it out of, and what saving we
could hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A thing
was worth buying then, wiien we felt the money that we
paid for it."
"Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to
hang upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you,
it grew so thread-bare — and all because of that folio
Beaumont and Fletcher, which you dragged home late at
night from Barker's in Covent Garden ? Do you re-
member how we eyed it for weeks before we could make
up our minds to the purchase, and had not come to a
determination till it was near ten o'clock of the Saturday
night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you should
be too late — and when the old bookseller with some
grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper
(for he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his
dusty treasures — and when you lugged it home, wishing it
were twice as cumbersome — and when you presented it to
me — and when we were exploring the perfectness of it
{collating you called it) — and while I was repairing some
288
Old China
of the loose leaves with paste, which your impatience
would not suffer to be left till daybreak — was there no
pleasure in being a poor man ? or can those neat black
clothes which you wear now, and are so careful to keep
brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give you
half the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about
in that overworn suit — your old corbeau — for four or five
weeks longer than you should have done, to pacify your
conscience for the mighty sum of fifteen — or sixteen
shillings was it? — a great affair we thought it then — which
you had lavished on the old folio. Now you can afi"ord to
buy any book that pleases you, but I do not see that you
ever bring me home any nice old purchases now."
"When you came home with twenty apologies for laying
out a less number of shillings upon that print after
Lionardo, which we christened the ' Lady Blanch ; ' when
you looked at the purchase, and thought of the money —
and thought of the money, and looked again at the picture
— was there no pleasure in being a poor man ? Now, you
have nothing to do but to walk into Colnaghi's, and buy a
wilderness of Lionardos. Yet do you ?"
"Then, do you remember our pleasant walks to Enfield,
and Potter's Bar, and Waltham, when we had a holyday —
holydays, and all other fun, are gone, now we are rich —
and the little hand-basket in which I used to deposit our
day's fare of savoury cold lamb and salad — and how you
would pry about at noon-tide for some decent house,
where we might go in, and produce our store — only paying
for the ale that you must call for — and speculate upon the
looks of the landlady, and whether she was likely to allow
us a table-cloth — and wish for such another honest hostess,
as Izaak Walton has described many a one on the pleasant
banks of the Lea, when he went a fishing — and sometimes
they would prove obliging enough, and sometimes they
would look grudgingly upon us — but we had cheerful looks
still for one another, and would eat our plain food savorily,
scarcely grudging Piscator his Trout Hall? Now,— when
we go out a day's pleasuring, which is seldom moreover,
we ride part of the way — and go into a fine inn, and order
the best of dinners, never debating the expense — which,
after all, never has half the relish of those chance country
snaps, when we were at the mercy of uncertain usage, and
a precarious welcome."
T 289
The Essays of Elia
"You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in
the pit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit,
when we saw the Battle of Hexham, and the Surrender of
Calais, and Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the Children in
the Wood — when we squeezed out our shillings a-piece to
sit three or four times in a season in the one-shilling
gallery — where you felt all the time that you ought not to
have brought me — and more strongly I felt obligation to
you for having brought me — and the pleasure was the
better for a little shame — and when the curt:! in drew up,
what cared we for our place in the house, or what mattered
it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were with
Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria?
You used to say, that the Gallery was the best place of all
for enjoying a play socially — that the relish of such exhibi-
tions must be in proportion to the infrequency of going —
that the company we met there, not being in general
readers of plays, were obliged to attend the more, and did
attend, to what was going on, on the stage — because a
word lost would have been a chasm, which it was impos-
sible fur them to fill up. With such reflections we con-
soled our pride then — and I appeal to you, whether, as a
woman, I met generally with less attention and accom-
modation, than I have done since in more expensive
situations in the house? The getting in indeed, and the
crowding up those inconvenient staircases, was bad enough,
— but there was still a law of civility to woman recognised
to quite as great an extent as we ever found in the other
passages — and how a little difficulty overcome heightened
the snug seat, and the play, afterwards ! Now we can
only pay our money and walk in. You cannot see, you
say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard
too, well enough then — but sight, and all, I think, is gone
with our poverty."
"There was pleasure in eating strawberries, before they
became quite common — in the first dish of peas, while
they were yet dear — to have them for a nice supper, a
treat. What treat can we have now? If we were to treat
ourselves now — that is, to have dainties a little above our
means, it would be selfish and wicked. It is very little
more that we allow ourselves beyond what the actual poor
can get at, that makes what I call a treat — when two
people living together, as we have done, now and then in-
290
Old China
dulge themselves in a cheap luxury, which both like ;
while each apologises, and is willing to take both halves ot
the blame to his single share. I see no harm in people
making much of themselves in that sense of the word. It
may give them a hint how to make much of others.
But now — what I mean by the word — v/e never do make
much of ourselves. None but the poor can do it. I do
not mean the veriest poor of all, but persons as we were,
just above poverty.
"I know what you were going to say, that it is mighty
pleasant at the end of the year to make all meet, — and
much ado we used to have every Thirty-first Night of
December to account for our exceedings — many a long
face did you make over your puzzled accounts, and in
contriving to make it out how we had spent so much —
or that we had not spent so much — or that it was
impossible we should spend so much next year —
— and still we found our slender capital decreasing — but
then, betwixt ways, and projects, and compromises of one
sort or another, and talk of curtailing this charge, and
doing without that for the future — and the hope that youth
brings, and laughing spirits (in which you were never poor
till now) we pocketed up our loss, and in conclusion, with
'lusty brimmers' (as you used to quote it out of hearty
cheerful Mr. Cotton, as you called him), we used to welcome
in the 'coming guest.' Now we have no reckoning at all
at the end of the old year — no flattering promises about
the new year doing better for us."
Bridget is so sparing of her speech on most occasions,
that when she gets into a rhetorical vein, I am careful how
I interrupt it. I could not help, however, smiling at the
phantom of wealth which her dear imagination had conjured
up out of a clear income of a poor — hundred pounds a year.
" It is true we were happier when we were poorer, but we
were also younger, my cousin. I am afraid we must put
up with the excess, for if we were to shake the superflux
into the sea, we should not much mend ourselves. That
we had much to struggle with, as we grew up together, we
have reason to be most thankful. It strengthened, and
knit our compact closer. We could never have been what
we have been to each other, if we had always had the suffi-
ciency which you now complain of. The resisting power —
those natural dilations of the youthful spirit, which circum-
291
The Essays of Elia
stances cannot straiten — with us are long since passed
away. Competence to age is supplementary youth, a sorry
supplement indeed, but I fear the best that is to be had.
We must ride, where we formerly walked : live better, and
lie softer — and shall be wise to do so — than we had means
to do in those good old days you speak of. Yet could
those days return — could you and I once more walk our
thirty miles a-day — could Bannister and Mrs. Bland again
be young, and you and 1 be young to see them — could the
good old one-shilling gallery days return — they are dreams,
my cousin, now — but could you and I at this moment, in-
stead of this quiet argument, by our well-carpeted fire-side,
sitting on this luxurious sofa — be once more struggling up
those inconvenient stair cases, pushed about, ana squeezed,
and elbowed by the poorest rabble of poor gallery scramblers
— could i once more hear those anxious shrieks of yours —
and the delicious Thank God, we are safe, which always
followed when the topmost stair, conquered, let in the first
light of the whole cheerful theatre down beneath us — I
know not the fathom line that ever touched a descent so
deep as I would be willing to bury more wealth in than
Crcesus had, or the great Jew R is supposed to have,
to purchase it. And now do just look at that merry little
Chinese waiter holding an umbrella, big enough for a bed-
tester, over the head of that pretty insipid half-Madonaish
chit of a lady in that very blue summer house."
CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD.
Dehortations from the use of strong liquors have been
the favourite topic of sober declaimers in all ages, and
have been received with abundance of applause by water-
drinking critics. But with the patient himself, the man
that is to be cured, unfortunately their sound has seldom
prevailed. Yet the evil is acknowledged, the remedy
simple. Abstain. No force can oblige a man to raise the
glass to his head against his will. 'Tis as easy as not to
steal, not to tell lies.
Alas ! the hand to pilfer, and the tongue to bear false
witness, have no constitutional tendency. These are actions
indifferent to them. At the first instance of the reformed
292
Confessions of a Drunkard
will, they can be brought off without a murmur. The
itching finger is but a figure in speech, and the tongue of
the liar can with the same natural delight give forth useful
truths, with which it has been accustomed to scatter their
pernicious contraries. But when a man has commenced
sot
0 pause, thou sturdy moralist, thou person of stout
nerves and a strong head, whose liver is happily untouched,
and ere thy gorge riseth at the name which I have written,
first learn what the thing is ; how much of compassion, how
much of human allowance, thou miayst virtuously mingle
with thy disapprobation. Trample not on the ruins of a
man. Exact not, under so terrible a penalty as infamy, a
resuscitation from a state of death almost as real as that
from which Lazarus rose not but by a miracle.
Begin a reformation, and custom will make it easy. But
what if the beginning be dreadful, the first steps not like
climbing a mountain but going through fire? what if the
whole system must undergo a change violent as that which
we conceive of the mutation of form in some insects ? what
if a process comparable to flaying alive be to be gone
through ? is the weakness that sinks under such struggles
to be confounded with the pertinacity which clings toother
vices, which have induced no constitutional necessity, no
engagement of the whole victim, body and soul ?
1 have known one in that state, when he has tried to
abstain but for one evening, — though the poisonous potion
had long ceased to bring back its first enchantments
though he was sure it would rather deepen his gloom than
brighten it, — in the violence of the struggle, and the
necessity he has felt of getting rid of the present sensation
at any rate, I have known him to scream out, to cry aloud,
for the anguish and pain of the strife within him.
Why should I hesitate to declare, that the man of whom
I speak is myself? I have no puling apology to make to
mankind. I see them all in one way or another deviating
from the pure reason. It is to my own nature alone I am
accountable for the woe that I have brought upon it.
I believe that there are constitutions, robust heads and
iron insides, whom scarce any excesses can hurt ; whom
brandy (I have seen them drink it like wine), at all events
whom wine, taken in ever so plentiful measure, can do no
worse injury to than just to muddle their faculties, perhaps
293
The Essays of Elia
never very pellucid. On them this discourse is wasted.
They would but laugh at a weak brother, who, trying his
strength with them, and coming off foiled from the contest,
would fain persuade them that such agonistic exercises are
dangerous. It is to a very different description of persons
I speak. It is to the weak, the nervous ; to those who feel
the want of some artificial aid to raise their spirits in
society to what is no more than the ordinary pitch ff all
around them without it. This is the secret of our drinking.
Such must fly the convivial board in the first instance, if
they do not mean to sell themselves for term of life.
Twelve years a?o I had completed my six-and-twentieth
year. I had lived from the period of leaving school to that
time pretty much in solitude. My companions were chiefly
books, or at most one or two living ones of my own book-
loving and sober stamp. I rose early, went to bed betimes,
and the faculties which God had given me, I have reason
to think, did not rust in me unused.
About that time I fell in with some companions of a
different order. They were men of boisterous spirits,
sitters up a-nights, disputants, drunken ; yet seemed to
have something noble about them. We dealt about the
wit, or what passes for it after midnight, jovially. Of the
quality called fancy I certainly possessed a larger share
than my companions. Encouraged by their applause, I
set up for a profe?sed joker ! I. who of all men am least
fitted for such an occupation, having, in addition to the
greatest difficulty which I experience at all times of finding
words to express my meaning, a natural nervous impedi-
ment in my speech !
Reader, if you are gifted with nerves like mine, aspire to
any character but that of a wit. When you find a tickling
relish upon your tongue disposing you to that sort of
conversation, especially if you find a preternatural flow of
ideas setting in upon you at the sight of a battle and fresh
glasses, avoid giving way to it as you would fly your greatest
destruction. If you cannot crush the power of fancy, or
that within you which you mistake for such, divert it, give
it some other play. Write an essay, pen a character or
description, — but not as T do now, with tears trickling
down your cheeks.
To be an object of compassion to friends, of derision to
foes ; to be suspected by strangers, stared at by fools ; to
294
Confessions of a Drunkard
be esteemed dull when you cannot be witty, to be ap-
plauded for witty when you know that you have been dull ;
to be called upon for the extemporaneous exercise of that
faculty which no premeditation can give ; to be spurred on
to efforts which end in contempt ; to be set on to provoke
mirth which procures the procurer hatred ; to give pleasure
and be paid with squinting malice; to swallow draughts of
life-destroying wine which are to be distilled into airy
breath to tickle vain auditors ; to mortgage miserable
morrows for nights of madness ; to waste whole seas of
time upon those who pay it back in little inconsiderable
drops of grudging applause, — are the wages of buffoonery
and death.
Time, which has a sure stroke at dissolving all con-
nections which have no solider fastening than this liquid
cement, more kind to me than my own taste or penetra-
tion, at length opened my eyes to the supposed qualities of
my first friends. No trace of them is left but in the vices
which they introduced, and the habits they infixed. In
them my friends survive still, and exercise ample retribu-
tion for any supposed infidelity that I may have been
guilty of towards them.
My next more immediate companions were and are
persons of such intrinsic and felt worth, that though
accidentally their acquaintance has proved pernicious to
me, I do not know that if the thing were to do over again,
I should have the courage to eschew the mischief at the
price of forfeiting the benefit. I came to them reeking
from the steams of my late over-heated notions of com-
panionship ; and the slightest fuel which they unconsciously
afforded, was sufficient to feed my old fires into a propensity.
They were no drinkers, but, one from professional habits,
and another from a custom derived from his father, smoked
tobacco. The devil could not have devised a more subtle
trap to re-take a backsliding penitent. The transition,
from gulping down draughts of liquid fire to puffing out
innocuous blasts of dry smoke, was so like cheating him.
But he is too hard for us when we hope to commute. He
beats us at barter ; and when v/e think to set off a new
failing against an old infirmity, 'tis odds but he puts the
trick upon us of two for one. That (comparatively) white
devil of tobacco brought with him in the end seven worse
than himself.
295
The Essays of Elia
It were impertinent to carry the reader through all the
processes by which, from smoking at first with malt liquor,
I took my degrees through thin wines, through stronger
wine and water, through small punch, to those juggling
compositions, which, under the name of mixed liquors,
slur a great deal of brandy or other poison under less and
less water continually, until they come next to none, and
so to none at all. But it is hateful to disclose the secrets
of my Tartarus.
I should repel my readers, from a mere incapacity of
believing me, were I to tell them what tobacco has been to
me, the drudging service which I have paid, the slavery
which I have vowed to it. How, when I have resolved
to quit it, a feeling as of ingratitude has started up; how
it has put on personal claims and made the demands of a
friend upon me. How the reading of it casually in a book,
as where Adams takes his whiflf in the chimney-corner of
some inn in Joseph Andrews, or Piscator in the Complete
Angler breaks his fast upon a morning pipe in that delicate
room Piscatoribus Sacrum, has in a moment broken down
the resistance of weeks. How a pipe was ever in my mid-
night path before me, till the vision forced me to realise it,
— how then its ascending vapours curled, its fragrance
lulled, and the thousand delicious ministerings conversant
about it, employing every faculty, extracted the sense of
pain. How from illuminating it came to darken, from a
quick solace it turned to a negative relief, thence to a
restlessness and dissatisfaction, thence to a positive misery.
How, even now, when the whole secret stands confessed
in all its dreadful truth before me, I feel myself linked to
it beyond the power of revocation. Bone of my bone
Persons not accustomed to examine the motives of their
actions, to reckon up the countless nails that rivet the
chains of habit, or perhaps being bound by none so
obdurate as those I have confessed to, may recoil from this
as from an overcharged picture. But what short of such
a bondage is it, which in spite of protesting friends, a
weeping wife and a reprobating world, chains down many
a poor fellow, of no original indisposition to goodness, to
his pipe and his pot?
I have seen a print after Correggio, in which three
female figures are ministering to a man who sits fast bound
at the root of a tree. Sensuality is soothing him, Evil
296
Confessions of a Drunkard
Habit is nailing him to a branch, and Repugnance at the
same instant of time is applying a snake to his side. In
his face is feeble delight, the recollection of past rather
than perception of present pleasures, languid enjoyment of
evil with utter imbecility to good, a Sybaritic effeminacy, a
submission to bondage, the springs of the will gone down
like a broken clock, the sin and the suffering co-instantane-
ous, or the latter forerunning the former, remorse preceding
action — all this represented in one point of time. — When
I saw this, I admired the wonderful skill of the painter.
But when I went away, I wept, because I thought of my
own condition.
Of that there is no hope that it should ever change.
The waters have gone over me. But out of the black
depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who
have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth,
to whom the flavour of his first v/ine is delicious as the
opening scenes of life or the entering upon some newly
discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made
to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall
feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a
passive will, — to see his destruction and have no power to
stop it, and yet to feel it all the way emanating from him-
self; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet
not to be able to forget a time when it was otherwise ; to
bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruins : —
could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last night's
drinking, and feverishly looking for this night's repetition
of the folly ; could he feel the body of the death out of
which I cry hourly with feebler and feebler outcry to be
delivered, — it were enough to make him dash the sparkling
beverage to the earth in ail the pride of its mantling tempta-
tion \ to make him clasp his teeth,
and not undo 'em
To suffer WET damnation to run thro' 'em.
Yea, but (methinks I hear somebody object) if sobriety
be that fine thing you would have us to understand, if the
comforts of a cool brain are to be preferred to that stale of
heated excitement which you describe and deplore, what
hinders in your own instance that you do not return to those
habits from which you would induce others never to swerve?
if the blessing be worth preserving, is it not worth recovering?
297
The Essays of Elia
Rfroveringl — O if a wish could transport me back to
those days of youth, when a draught from the next clear
spring could slake any heats which summer suns and youth-
ful exercise had power to stir up in the blood, how gladly
would I return to thee, pure element, the drink of children,
and of child-like holy hermit. In my dreams I can some-
times fancy thy cool refreshment purling over my burning
tongue. But my waking stomach rejects it. That which
-efreshes innocence, only makes me sick and faint.
But is there no middle way betwixt total abstinence and
the excess which kills you? — For your sake, reader, and
that you may never attain to my experience, with pain I
must utter the dreadful truth, that there is none, none that
I can find. In my stage of habit (I speak not of habits
less confirmed — for some of them I believe the advice to
be most prudential) in the stage which I have reached, to
stop short of that measure which is sufficient to draw on
torpor and sleep, the benumbing apoplectic sleep of the
drunkard, is to have taken none at all. The pain of the
self-denial is all one. And what that is, I had rather the
reader should believe on my credit, than know from his
own trial. He will come to know it, whenever he shall
arrive in that state, in which, paradoxical as it may appear,
reason shall only visit hifn through intoxication : for it is a
fearful truth, that the intellectual faculties by repeated acts
of intemperance may be driven from their orderly sphere of
action, their clear day-light ministries, until they shall be
brought at last to depend, for the faint manifestation of
their departing energies, upon the returning periods of the
fatal madness to which they owe their devastation. The
drinking man is never less himself than during his sober
intervals. Evil is so far his good.'
Behold me then, in the robust period of life, reduced to
imbecility and decay. Hear me count my gains, and the
profits which I have derived from the midnight cup.
Twelve years ago I was possessed of a healthy frame of
mind and body. I was never strong, but I think my con-
'Wh'rn poor M painted his last picture, with a pencil in one
trembling hand and a glass of brandy and water in the other, his f.ngers
ovsed the comparative steadiness, with which they were enabled to go
through their task in an imperfect manner, to a temporary firmness de-
rived from a repetition of practices, the general cflect of which h«d
shaken both them and him so terribly.
2Q8
Confessions of a Drunkard
siitution (for a weak one) was as happily exempt from the
tendency to any malady as it was possible to be. I scarce
knew what it was to ail anything. Now, except when I am
losing myself in a sea of drink, I am never free from those
uneasy sensations in head and stomach, which are so much
worse to bear than any definite pains or aches.
At that time I was seldom in bed after six in the morning,
summer and winter. 1 awoke refreshed, and seldom with-
out some merry thoughts in my head, or some piece of a
song to welcome the new-born day. Now, the first feeling
which besets me, after stretching out the hours of recumb
ence to their last possible extent, is a forecast of the weari-
some day that lies before me, with a secret wish that I
could have lain on still, or never awaked.
Life itself, my waking life, has much of the confusion,
the trouble, and obscure perplexity, of an ill dream. In the
day time I stumble upon dark mountains.
Business, which, though never particularly adapted to
my nature, yet as something of necessity to be gone
through, and therefore best undertaken with cheerfulness,
I used to enter upon with some degree of alacrity, now
wearies, affrights, perplexes me. I fancy all sorts of dis-
couragements, and am ready to give up an occupation
which gives me bread, from a harassing conceit of in-
capacity. The slightest commission given me by a friend,
or any small duty which I have to perform for myself, as
giving orders to a tradesman, &c., haunts me as a labour
impossible to be got through. So much the springs of
action are broken.
The same cowardice attends me in all my intercourse
with mankind. I dare not promise that a friend's honour,
or his cause, would be safe in my keeping, if I were put
to the expense of any manly resolution in defending it.
So much the springs of moral action are deadened
within me.
My favourite occupations in times past, now cease to
entertain. I can do nothing readily. Application for ever
so short a time kills me. This poor abstract of my con-
dition was penned at long intervals, with scarcely any
attempt at connection of thought, which is now difficult
to me.
The noble passages which formerly delighted me in
history or poetic fiction, now only draw a few weak tears,
299
The Essays of Elia
allied to dotage. My broken and dispirited nature seems
to sink before anything great and admirable.
I perpetually catch myself in tears, for any cause, or
none. It is inexpressible how much this infirmity adds to
a sense of shame, and a general feeling of deterioration.
These are some of the instances, concerning \vhich I can
say with truth, that it was not always so with me.
Shall I lift up the veil of my weakness any further ? or
is this disclosure sufficient?
I am a poor nameless egotist, who have no vanity to
consult by these Confessions. I know not whether I shall
be laughed at, or heard seriously. Such as they are, I
commend them to the reader's attention, if he find his own
case any way touched. I have told him what I am come
to. Let him stop in time.
POPULAR FALLACIES.
I.
THAT A BULLY IS ALWAYS A COWARD.
This axiom contains a principle of compensation, which
disposes us to admit the truth of it. But there is no safe
trusting to dictionaries and definitions. We should more
willingly fall in with this popular language, if we did not
find brutality sometimes awkwardly coupled with valour
in the same vocabulary. The comic writers, with their
poetical justice, have contributed not a little to mislead us
upon this point. To see a hectoring fellow exposed and
beaten upon the stage, has something in it wonderfully
diverting. Some people's share of animal spirits is
notoriously low and defective. It has not strength to
raise a vapour, or furnish out the wind of a tolerable
bluster. These love to be told that huffing is no part of
valour. The truest courage with them is that which is the
least noisy and obtrusive. But confront one of these
silent heroes with the swaggerer of real life, and his con-
fidence in the theory quickly vanishes. Pretensions do
not uniformly bespeak non-performance. A modest in-
offensive deportment does not necessarily imply valour;
300
Popular Fallacies
neither does the absence of it justify us in denying that
quality. Hickman wanted modesty — we do not mean him
of Clarissa — but who ever doubted his courage ? Even
the poets — upon whom this equitable distribution of
qualities should be most binding — have thought it agree-
able to nature to depart from the rule upon occasion.
Harapha, in the " Agonistes," is indeed a bully upon the
received notions. Milton has made him at once a
blusterer, a giant, and a dastard. But Almanzor, in
Dryden, talks of driving armies singly before him — and
does it. Tom Brown had a shrewder insight into this
kind of character than either of his predecessors. He
divides the palm more equably, and allows his hero a sort
of dimidiate pre-eminence : — " Bully Dawson kicked by
half the town, and half the town kicked by Bully Dawson."
This was true distributive justice.
II.
THAT ILL-GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS.
The weakest part of mankind have this saying
commonest in their mouth. It is the trite consolation
administered to the easy dupe, when he has been tricked
out of his money or estate, that the acquisition of it will
do the owner no good. But the rogues of this world — the
prudenter part of them, at least — know better ; and, if the
observation had been as true as it is old, would not have
failed by this time to have discovered it. They have
pretty sharp distinctions of the fluctuating and the per-
manent. " Lightly come, lightly go," is a proverb, which
they can very well afford to leave, when they leave little
else, to the losers. They do not always find manors, got
by rapine or chicanery, insensibly to melt away, as the
poets will have it ; or that all gold glides, like thawing
snow, from the thief's hand that grasps it. Church land,
alienated to lay uses, was formerly denounced to have
this slippery quality. B'lt some portions of it somehow
always stuck so fast, that the denunciators have been
fain to postpone the prophecy of refundment to a late
posterity.
301
The Essays of Elia
III.
THAT A MAN MUST NOT LAUGH AT HIS OWN JEST.
The severest exaction surely ever invented upon the
self-denial of poor human nature ! This is to expect a
gentleman to give a treat without partaking of it ; to sit
esurient at his own table, and commend the flavour of his
venison upon the absurd strength of his never touching it
himself. On the contrary, we love to see a wag /a5/'<; his
own joke to his party ; to watch a quirk, or a merry conceit,
flickering upon the lips some seconds before the tongue is
delivered of it. If it be good, fresh, and racy — begotten
of the occasion; if he that utters it never thought it before,
he is naturally the first to be tickled with it ; and any
suppression of such complacence we hold to be churlish
and insulting. What does it seem to imply, but that your
company is weak or foolish enough to be moved by an
image or a fancy, that shall stir you not at all, or but
faintly? This is exactly the humour of the fine gentleman
in Mandeville, who, while he dazzles his guests with the
display of some costly toy, affects himself to " see nothing
considerable in it."
IV.
THAT SUCH A ONE SHOWS HIS BREEDING. — THAT IT
IS EASY TO PERCEIVE HE IS NO GENTLEMAN.
A speech from the poorer sort of people, which always
indicates that the party vituperated is a gentleman. The
very fact which they deny, is that which galls and ex-
asperates them to use this language. The forbearance with
which it is usually received, is a proof what interpretation
the bystander sets upon it. Of a kin to this, and still
less politic, are the phrases with which, in their street
rhetoric, they ply one another more grossly ; — He is a poor
creature,. — He has not a rag to cover , 6^<r. ; though this
last, we confess is more frequently applied by females to
females. They do not perceive that the satire glances
upon themselves. A poor man, of all things in the world,
should not upbraid an antagonist with poverty. Are there
no other topics — as, to tell him his father was hanged —
his sister, &c. , without exposing a secret, which should
'■02
Popular Fallacies
be kept snug between them; and doing an affront
to the order to which they have the honour equally
to belong? All this while they do not see how the
wealthier man stands by and laughs in his sleeve at both.
V.
THAT THE POOR COPY THE VICES OF THE RICH.
A smooth text to the latter; and, preached from the
pulpit, is sure of a docile audience from the pews lined
with satin. It is twice sitting upon velvet to a foolish squire
to be told, that he — and not perverse nature, as the homilicE
would make us imagine, is the true cause of all the
irregularities in his parish. This is striking at the root
of free-will indeed, and denying the originality of sin in any
sense. But men are not such implicit sheep as this comes
to. If the abstinence from evil on the part of the uppe^-
classes is to derive itself from no higher principle, than the
apprehension of setting ill patterns to the lower, we beg
leave to discharge them from all squeamishness on that
score: they may even take their fill of pleasures, where
they can find them. The Genius of Poverty, hampered
and straitened as it is, is not so barren of invention but it
can trade upon the staple of its own vice, without drawing
upon their capital. The poor are not quite such servile
imitators as they take them for. Some of them are very
clever artists in their way. Here and there we find an
original. Who taught the poor to steal, to pilfer? They
did not go to the great for schoolmasters in these faculties
surely. It is well if in some vices they allow us to be — no
copyists. In no other sense is it true that the poor copy
them, than as servants may be said to lake after their
masters and mistresses, when they succeed to their
reversionary cold meats. If the master, from indisposition
or some other cause, neglect his food, the servant dines
notwithstanding.
" 0, but (some will say) the force of example is great."
We knew a lady who was so scrupulous on this head, that
she would put up with the calls of the most impertinent
visitor, rather than let her servant say she was not at home,
for fear of teaching her maid to tell an untruth; and this
in the very face of the fact, which she knew well enough,
303
The Essays of Elia
that the wench was one of the greatest liars upon the earth
without teaching ; so much so, that her mistress possibly
never heard two words of consecutive truth from her in her
life. But nature must go for nothing : example must be
everything. This liar in grain, who never opened her
mouth without a lie, must be guarded against a remote
inference, which she (pretty casuist !) might possibly draw
fri)m a form of words — literally false, but essentially
deceiving no one — that under some circumstances a fib
migit not be so exceedingly sinful — a fiction, too, not at
all in her own way, or one that she could be suspected of
adopting, for few servant-wenches care to be denied to
visitors.
This word example reminds us of another fine word which
is in use upon these oc^isions — encouragement. " People
in our spnere must not be thought to give encouragement
to such proceedings." To such a frantic height is this
principle capable of being carried, that we have known
individuals who have thought it within the scope of their
influence to sanction despair, and give eclat to — suicide.
A d )mestic in the family of a county member lately
deceased, from love, or some unknown cause, cut his
throat, but not successfully. The i>oor fellow was other-
wise much loved and respected ; and great interest was
used in his behalf, upon his recovery, that he might be
permitted to retain his place; his word being first pledged,
not without some substan ial sponsors to promise for him,
that the like should never happen again. His master was
inclinable to keep him, but his mistress thought otherwise;
and John in the end was dismissed, her ladyship declaring
that she "could not think of encouraging any such doings
in the county."
VI.
THAT ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST.
Not a man, woman, or child in ten miles round Guildhall,
who really believes this saying. The inventor of it did not
believe it himself. It was made in revenge by somebody,
who was disappointed of a regale. It is a vile cold-scrag-
of-miitton sophism; a lie palmed upon the palate, which
knows better things. If nothing else could be said for a
304
Popular Fallacies
feast, this is sufficient, that from the superflux there is usually
something left for the next day. Morally interpreted, it
belongs to a class of proverbs, which have a tendency to
make us undervalue money. Of this cast are those notable
observations, that money is not health ; riches cannot pur-
chase every thing ; the metaphor which makes gold to be
mere muck, with the morality which traces fine clothing to
the sheep's back, and denounces pearl as the unhandsome
excretion of an oyster. Hence, too, the phrase which im-
putes dirt to acres — a sophistry so barefaced, that even the
literal sense of it is true only in a wet season. This, and
abundance of similar sage saws assuming to inculcate
content, we verily believe to have been the invention of
some cunning borrower, who had designs upon the purse
of his wealthier neighbour, which he could only hope to
carry by force of these verbal jugglings. Translate any
one of these sayings out of the artful metonyme which
envelopes it, and the trick is apparent. Goodly legs and
shoulders of mutton, exhilarating cordials, books, pictures,
the opportunities of seeing foreign countries, independence,
heart's ease, a man's own time to himself, are not muck —
however we may be pleased to scandalise with that appella-
tion the faithful metal that provides them for us.
VI L
OF TWO DISPUTANTS, THE WARMEST IS GENERALLY
IN THE WRONG.
Our experience would lead us to quite an opposite con-
clusion. Temper, indeed, is no test of truth ; but warmth
and earnestness are a proof of least of a man's own con-
viction of the rectitude of that which he maintains. Cool-
ness is as often the result of an unprincipled indifference
to truth or falsehood, as of a sober confidence in a man's
own side in a dispute. Nothing is more insulting some-
times than the appearance of this philosophic temper.
There is little Titubus, the stammering law-stationer in
Lincoln's Inn — we have seldom known this shrewd little
fellow engaged in an argument where we were not con-
vinced he had the best of it, if his tongue would but fairly
have seconded him. When he has been spluttering
u 305
The Essays of Elia
excellent broken sense for an hour together, writhing and
labouring to be delivered of the point of dispute — the very
gist of thr controversy knocking at his teeth, which like
some obstinate iron-grating still obstructed its deliverance
— his puny frame convulsed, and face reddening all over
at an unfairness in the logic which he wanted articulation
to expose, it has moved our gall to see a smooth portly
fellow of an adversary, that cared not a button for the
merits of the question, by merely laying his hand upon the
head of the stationer, and desiring him to be calm (your
tall disputants have always the advantage), with a pro-
voking sneer carry the argument clean from him in the
opinion of all the by-standtrs, who have gone away clearly
convinced that Titubus must have been in the wrong,
because he was in a passion ; and that Mr , meaning
his opponent, is one of the fairest, and at the same time
one of the most dispassionate arguers breathing,
VIII.
THAT VERBAL ALLUSIONS ARE NOT WIT, BECAUSE THEY
WILL NOT BEAR A TRANSLATION,
The same might be said of the wittiest local allusions. A
custom is sometimes as difficult to explain to a foreigner
as a pun. What would become of a great part of the wit
of the last age, if it were tried by this test? How would
certain topics, as aldermanity, cuckoldry, have sounded to
a Terentian auditory, though Terence himself had been
alive to translate them? Senator urbanus, with Curruca
to boot for a synonyme, would but faintly have done the
business. Words, involving notions, are hard enough to
render; it is too much to expect us to translate a sound,
and give an elegant version to a jingle. The Virgilian
harmony is not translatable, but by substituting harmoni-
ous sounds in another language for it. To Latinise a pun,
we must seek a pun in Latin, that will answer to it; as, to
give an idea of the double endings in Hudibras, we must
have recourse to a similar practice in the old monkish
doggrel. Dennis, the fiercest oppugner of puns in ancient
or modern times, professes himself highly tickled with the
" a stick " chiming to " ecclesiastic." Yet what is this but
a species of pun, a verbal consonance?
.■?o6
Popular Fallacies
IX.
THAT THE WORST PUNS ARE THE BEST.
If by the worst be only meant the most far-fetched and
startling, we agree to it. A pun is not bound by the laws
which limit nicer wit. It is a pistol let off at the ear ; not
a feather to tickle the intellect. It is an antic which does
not stand upon manners, but comes bounding into the
presence, and does not show the less comic for being
dragged in sometimes by the head and shoulders. What
though it limp a little, or prove defective in one leg — all
the better. A pun may easily be too curious and artificial.
Who has not at one time or other been at a party of pro-
fessors (himself perhaps an old offender in that line),
where, after ringing a round of the most ingenious con-
ceits, every man contributing his shot, and some there
the most expert shooters of the day ; after making a poor
word run the gauntlet till it is ready to drop ; after hunting
and winding it through all the possible ambages of similar
sounds ; after squeezing and hauling, and tugging at it, till
the very milk of it will not yield a drop further, — suddenly
some obscure, unthought-of fellow in a corner, who was
never 'prentice to the trade, whom the company for very
pity passed over, as we do by a known poor man when a
money-subscription is going round, no one calling upon
him for his quota — has all at once come out with something
so whimsical, yet so pertinent ; so brazen in its pretensions,
yet so impossible to be denied ; so exquisitely good, and
so deplorably bad, at the same time, — that it has proved a
Robin Hood's shot; any thing ulterior to that is despaired
of; and the party breaks up, unanimously voting it to be
the very worst (that is, best) pun of the evening. This
species of wit is the better for not being perfect in all its
parts. What it gains in completeness, it loses in natural-
ness. The more exactly it satisfies the critical, the less
hold it has upon some other faculties. The puns which
are most entertaining are those which will least bear an
analysis. Of this kind is the following, recorded with a
sort of stigma, in one of Swift's Miscellanies.
An Oxford scholar, meeting a porter who was carrying a
hare through the streets, accosts him with this extraordinary
307
The Essays of Elia
question : " Prithee, friend, is that thy own hare, or a
wig ? "
There is no excusing this, and no resisting it. A man
might blur ten sides of paper in attempting a defence of it
against a critic who should be laughter-proof. The quibble
in itself is not considerable. It is only a new turn given,
by a little false pronunciation, to a very common, though
not very courteous inquiry. Put by one gentleman to
another at a dinner-party, it would have been vapid; to the
mistress of the house, it would have shown much less wit
than rudeness. We must take in the totality of time, place,
and person ; the pert look of the inquiring scholar, the de-
sponding looks of the puzzled porter ; the one stopping at
leisure, the other hurrying on with his burthen ; the inno-
cent though rather abrupt tendency of the first member of
the question, with the utter and inextricable irrelevancy of
the second ; the place — a public street, not favourable to
frivolous investigations; the aflfrontive quality of the primi-
tive inquiry (the common question) invidiously transterred
to the derivative (the new turn given to it) in the implied
satire ; namely, that few of that tribe are expected to eat of
the good things which they carry, they being in most
countries considered rather as the temporary trustees than
owners of such dainties, — which the fellow was beginning
to understand ; but then the wig again comes in, and he
can make nothing of it ; all put together constitute a picture :
Hogarth could have made it intelligible on canvas.
Yet nine out of ten critics will pronounce this a very bad
pun, because of the defectiveness in the concluding member,
which is its very beauty, and constitutes the surprise. The
same persons shall cry up for admirable the cold quibble
from Virgil about the broken Cremona ^ ; because it is made
out in all its parts, and leaves nothing to the imagination.
We venture to call it cold ; because of thousands who have
adm.ired it, it would be difiicult to find one who has heartily
chuckled at it. As appealing to the judgment merely
(setting the risible faculty aside), we must pronounce it a
monument of curious felicity. But as some stories are said
to be too good to be true, it may with equal truth be asserted
of this bi-verbal allusion, that it is too good to be natural.
One cannot help suspecting that the incident was invented
to fit the line. It would have been better had it been less
» Swift.
308
Popular Fallacies
perfect. Like some Virgilian hemistichs, it has suffered by
filling up. The nimium Vicina was enough in conscience ;
the Cremona afterwards loads it. It is in fact a double
pun; and we have always observed that a superfoetation in
this sort of wit is dangerous. When a man has said a good
thing, it lo seldom politic to follow it up. We do not care
to be cheated a second time ; or, perhaps, the mind of man
(with reverence be it spoken) is not capacious enough to
lodge two puns at a time. The impression, to be forcible,
must be simultaneous and undivided.
X.
THAT HANDSOME IS THAT HANDSOME DOES.
Those who use this proverb can never have seen Mrs,
Conrady.
The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from the
celestial beauty. As she partakes more or less of this
heavenly light, she informs, with corresponding characters,
the fleshly tenement which she chooses, and frames to her-
self a suitable mansion.
All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady, in
her pre-existent state, was no great judge of architecture.
To the same effect, in a Hymn in honour of Beauty,
divine Spenser p/a/ontst'ng, sings: —
-Every spirit as it is more pure,
And hath in it the more of heavenly light,
So It the fairer body doth procure
To habit in, and it more fairly dight
With cheerful grace and amiable sight.
For of the soul the body form doth take :
For soul is form and doth the body make."
But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady.
These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philosophy ;
for here, in his very next stanza but one, is a saving clause,
which throws us all out again, and leaves us as much to
seek as ever : —
*' Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind
Dwells in deformed tabernacle drown'd,
Either by chance, against the course of kind.
Or through unaptness in the substance found,
Which it assumed of some stubborn ground,
That will not yield unto her form's direction,
But is performed with some foul imperiectlou."
309
The Essays of Elia
From which it would follow, that Spenser had seen some-
body like Mrs. Conrady.
The spirit of this good lady — her previous anima — must
have stumbled upon one of these untoward tabernacles
which he speaks of. A more rebellious commodity of clay
for a ground, as the poet calls it, no gentle mind — and
sure her's is one of the gentlest — ever had to deal with.
Pondering upon her inexplicable visage — inexplicable,
we mean, but by this modification of the theory — we have
come to a conclusion that, if one must be plain, it is better
to be plain all over, than, amidst a tolerable residue of
features, to hang out one that shall be exceptionable. No
one can say of Mrs. Conrady's countenance that it would
be better if she had but a nose. It is impossible to pull
her to pieces in this manner. We have seen the most
malicious beauties of her own sex baffled in the attempt at
a selection. The tout ensemble defies particularising. It is
too complete — too consistent, as we may say — to admit of
these invidious reservations. It is not as if some Apelles
had picked out here a lip — and there a chin — out of the
collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It is a
symmetrical whole. We challenge the minutest connois-
seur to cavil at any part or parcel of the countenance in
question ; to say that this, or that, is improperly placed.
We are convinced that true ugliness, no less than is
affirmed of true beauty, is the result of harmony. Like
that too it reigns without a competitor. No one ever saw
Mrs. Conrady^ without pronouncing her to be the plainest
woman that he ever met with in the course of his life. The
first time that you are indulged with a sight of her face, is
an era in your existence ever after. You are glad to have
seen it — like Stonehenge. No one can pretend to forget
it. No one ever apologised to her for meeting her in the
street on such a day and not knowing her: the pretext
would be too bare. Nobody can mistake her for another.
Nobody can say of her, " I think I have seen that face
somewhere, but I cannot call to mind where." You must
remember that in such a parlour it first struck you — like a
bust. You wondered where the owner of the house had picked
it up. You wondered more when it began to move its lips
— so mildly too ! No one ever thought of asking her to
sit for her picture. Lockets are for remembrance; and it
would be clearly superfluous to hang an image at your
310
Popular Fallacies
heart, which, once seen, can never be out of it It is not
a mean face either ; its entire originaHty precludes that.
Neither is it of that order of plain faces which improve
upon acquaintance. Some very good but ordinary people,
by an unwearied perseverance in good offices, put a cheat
upon our eyes ; juggle our senses out of their natural im-
pressions; and set us upon discovering good indications in
a countenance, which at first sight promised nothing less.
We detect gentleness, which had escaped us, lurking about
an under lip. But when Mrs. Conrady has done you a
service, her face remains the same ; when she has done you
a thousand, and you know that she is ready to double the
number, still it is that individual face. Neither can vousay
of it, that it would be a good face if it were not marked by
the small pox — a compliment which is always more ad-
mis^ive than excusatory — for either Mrs. Conrady never
haci the small pox : or, as we say, took it kindly. No, it
stands upon its own merits fairly. There it is. It is her
mark, her token ; that which she is known by.
XL
THAT WE MUST NOT LOOK A GIFT-HORSE IN THE MOUTH.
Nor a lady's age in the parish register. We hope we
have more delicacy than to do either ; but some faces
spare us the trouble of these dental inquiries. And what
if the beast, which my friend would force upon my accept-
ance, prove, upon the face of it, a sorry Rosinante, a lean,
ill-favoured jade, whom nogentlemancould think of setting
up in his stables? Must I, rather than not be obliged to
my friend, make her a companion to Eclipse or Lightfoot?
A horse-giver, no more than a horse-seller, has a right to
palm his spavined article upon us for good ware. An
equivalent is expected in either case ; and, with my own
good will, I would no more be cheated out of my thanks
than out of my money. Some people have a knack of
putting upon you gifts of no real value, to engage you to
substantial gratitude. We thank them for nothing. Our
friend Mitis carries this humour of never refusing a present,
to the very point of absurdity — if it were possible to couple
the ridiculous with so much mistaken delicacy, and real
good nature. Not an apartment in his fine house (and he
311
The Essays of Elia
has a true taste in household decorations), but is stuffed
up with some preposterous print or mirror — the worst
adapted to his panels that may be — the presents of his
friends tliat know his weakness ; while his noble Vandykes
are displaced, to make room for a set of daubs, the work
of some wretched artist of his acquaintance, who, having
had them returned upon his hands for bad likenesses, finds
his account in bestowing them here gratis. The good
creature has not the heart to mortify the painter at the
expense of an honest refusal. It is pleasant (if it did not
vex one at the same time) to see him sitting in his dining
parlour, surrounded with obscure aunts and cousins to
God knows whom, while the true Lady Marys and Lady
Bettys of his own honourable family, in favour to these
adopted frights, are consigned to the staircase and the
lumber-room. In like manner his goodly shelves are one
by one stript of his favourite old authors, to give place to
a collection of presentation copies — the flour and bran of
modern poetry. A presentation copy, reader, — if haply
you are yet innocent of such favours — is a copy of a book
which does not sell, sent you by the author, with his
foolish autograph at the beginning of it ; for which, if a
stranger, he only demands your friendship ; if a brother
author he expects from you a book of yours, which does
sell, in return. We can speak to experience, having by us
a tolerable assortment of these gift-horses. Not to ride a
metaphor to death — we are willing to acknowledge, that in
some gifts there is sense. A duplicate out of a friend's
library (where he has more than one copy of a rare author)
is intelligible. There are favours, short of the pecuniary —
a thing not fit to be hinted at among gentlemen — which
confer as much grace upon the acceptor as the offerer ; the
kind, we confess, which is most to our palate, is of those
little conciliatory missives, which for their vehicle generally
choose a hamper — little odd presents of game, fruit, per-
haps wine — though it is essential to the delicacv of the
latter that it be home-made. We love to have our friend
in the country sitting thus at our table by proxy ; to ap-
prehend his presence (though a hundred miles may be
between us) by a turkey, whose goodly aspect reflects to
us his "plump corpusculum ; " to taste him in grouse or
woodcock ; to feel him gliding down in the toast peculiar
to the latter : to concorporate him in a slice of Canterbury
312
Popular Fallacies
brawn. This is indeed to have him wilhin ourselves ; to
know him intimately : such participation is methinks
unitive, as the old theologians phrase it. For these con-
siderations we should be sorry if certain restrictive
regulations, which are thought to bear hard upon the
peasantry of this country, were entirely done away with.
A iare, as the law now stands, makes many friends.
Caius conciliates Titius (knowing his gout) with a leash of
partridges. Titius (suspecting his partiality for them)
passes them to Lucius ; who in his turn, preferring his
friend's relish to his own, makes them over to Marcius ;
till in their ever widening progress, and round of uncon-
scious circum-migration, they distribute the seeds of
harmony over half a parish. We are well disposed to this
kind of sensible remembrances ; and are the less apt to be
taken by those little airy tokens — impalpable to the palate
— which, under the names of rings, lockets, keep-sakes,
amuse some people's fancy mightily. We could never
away with these indigestible trifles. They are the very
kickshaws and foppery of friendship.
XII.
THAT HOME IS HOME THOUGH IT IS NEVER SO HOMELY
Homes there are, we are sure, that are no homes ; the
home of the very poor man, and another which we shall
speak to presently. Crowded places of cheap entertain-
ment, and the benches of ale-houses, if they could speak,
might bear mournful testimony to the first. To them the
very poor man resorts for an image of the home, which he
cannot find at home. For a starved grate, and a scanty
firing, th't is not enough to keep alive the natural heat in
the fingers of so many shivering children with their mother,
he finds in the depths of winter always a blazing hearth,
and a hob to warm his pittance of beer by. Instead of the
clamours of a wife, made gaunt by famishing, he meets
with a cheerful attendance beyond the merits of the trifle
which he can afford to spend. He has companions which
his home denies him, for the very poor man has no visitors.
He can look into the goings on of the world, and speak a
little to politics. At home there are no politics stirring,
but the domestic. All interests, real or imaginary, all
313
The Essays of Elia
topics that should expand the mind of man, and connect
him to a sympathy with general existence, are crushed in
the absorbing considerations of food to be obtained for the
family. Beyond the price of bread, news is senseless and
impertinent. At home there is no larder. Here there is
at least a show of plenty; and while he cooks his lean
scrap of butcher's meat before the common bars, or
munches his humbler cold viands, his relishing bread and
cheese with an onion, in a corner, where no one reflects
upon his poverty, he has a sight of the substantial joint
providing for the landlord and his family. He takes an
interest in the dressing of it; and while he assists in
removing the trivet from the fire, he feels that there is such
a thing as beef and cabbage, which he was beginning to
forget at home. All this while he deserts his wife and
children. But what wife, and what children? Prosperous
men, who object to this desertion, image to themselves
some clean contented family like that which they go home
to. But look at the countenance of the poor wives who
follow and persecute their good man to the door of the
public house, which he is about to enter, when something
like shame would restrain him, if stronger misery did not
induce him to pass the threshold. That face, ground by
want, in which every cheerful, every conversable lineament
has been long effaced by misery, — is that a face to stay at
home with? is it more a woman, or a wild cat? alas ! it is
the face of the wife of his youth, that once smiled upon
him. It can smile no longer. What comforts can it
share? what burthens can it lighten? Oh, 'tis a fine thing
to talk of the humble meal shared together ! But wliat if
there be no bread in the cupboard? The innocent prattle
of his children takes out the sting of a man's poverty.
But the children of the very poor do not prattle. It is
none of the least frightful features in that condition, that
there is no childishness in its dwellings. Poor people, said
a sensible old nurse to us once, do not bring up their
children ; they drag them up. The little careless darling
of the wealthier nursery, in their hovel is transformed
betimes into a premature reflecting person. No one has
time to dandle it, no one thinks it worth while to coax it,
to soothe it, to toss it up and down, to humour it. There
is none to kiss away its tears. If it cries, it can only be
beaten. It has been prettily said that "a babe is fed
3M
Popular Fallacies
with milk and praise." But the ailment of this poor babe
was thin, unnourishing ; the return to its little baby-tricks,
and efforts to engage attention, bitter ceaseless objurgation.
It never had a toy, or knew what a coral meant. It grew
up without the lullaby of nurses, it was a stranger to the
patient fondle, the hushing caress, the attracting novelty,
the costlier plaything, or the cheaper off-hand contrivance
to divert the child ; the prattled nonsense (best sense to it),
the wise irapertinencies, the wholesome lies, the apt story
interposed, that puts a stop to present sufferings, and
awakens the passion of young wonder. It was never sung
to — no one ever told to it a tale of the nursery. It was
dri^gged up, to live or to die as it happened. It had not
young dreams. It broke at once into the iron realities of
life. A child exists not for the very poor as any object of
dalliance; it is only another mouth to bfe fed, a pair of
little hands to be betimes inured to labour. It is the rival,
till it can be the co-operator, for food with the parent. It
is never his mirth, his diversion, his solace; it never makes
him young again, with recalling his young times. The
children of the very poor have no young times. It makes
the very heart to bleed to overhear the casual street-talk
between a poor woman and her little girl, a woman of the
better sort of poor, in a condition rather above the squalid
beings which we have been contemplatir.g. It is not of
toys, of nursery books, of summer holidays (fitting that
age) ; of the promised sight, or play ; of praised sufficiency
at school. It is of mangling and clear-starching, of the
price of coals, or of potatoes. The questions of the child,
that should be the very outpourings of curiosity in idleness,
are marked with forecast and melancholy providence. It
has come to be a woman, — before it was a child. It has
learned to go to market ; it chaffers, it haggles, it envies, it
murmurs ; it is knowing, acute, sharpened ; it never
prattles. Had we not reason to say, that the home of the
very poor is no home?
There is yet another home, which we are constrained to
deny to be one. It has a larder, which the home of the
poor man wants ; its fireside conveniences, of which the
poor dream not. But with all this, it is no home. It is —
the house of the man that is infested with many visitors.
May we be branded for the veriest churl, if we deny our
heart to the many noble-hearted friends that at times ex-
315
The Essays of Elia
change their dwelling for our poor roof ! It is not of guests
that we complain, but of endless, purposeless visitants ;
droppers in, as they are called. We sometimes wonder
from what sky they fall. It is the very error of the position
of our lodging ; its horoscopy was ill calculated, being just
situate in a medium — a plaguy suburban midspace — fitted
to catch idlers from town or country. We are older than
we were, and age is easily put out of its way. We have
fewer sands in our glass to reckon upon, and we cannot
brook to see them drop in endlessly succeeding impertin-
ences. At our time of life, to be alone sometimes is as
needful as sleep. It is the refreshing sleep of the day.
The growing infirmities of age manifest themselves in
nothing more strongly, than in an inveterate dislike of
interruption. The thing which we are doing, we wish to
be permitted to do. We have neither much knowledge
nor devices ; but there are fewer in the place to which we
hasten. We are not willingly put out of our way, even at a
game of nine-pins. While youth was, we had vast rever-
sions in time future ; we are reduced to a present pittance,
and obliged to economise in that article. We bleed away
our moments now as hardly as our ducats. We cannot
bear to have our thin wardrobe eaten and fretted into by
moths. We are willing to barter our good time with a
friend, who gives us in exchange his own. Herein is the
distinction between the genuine guest and the visitant.
This latter takes your good time, and gives you his bad in
exchange. The guest is domestic to you as your good cat,
or household bird ; the visitant is your fiy, that flaps in at
your window, and out again, leaving nothing but a sense of
disturbance, and victuals spoiled. The inferior functions of
life begin to move heavily. We cannot concoct our food with
interruptions. Our chief meal, to be nutritive, must be
solitary. With difficulty we can eat before a guest ; and
never understood what the relish of public feasting meant.
Meats have no sapor, nor digestion fair play, in a crowd.
The unexpected coming in of a visitant strips the machine.
There is a punctual generation who time their calls to the
precise commencement of your dining-hour — not to eat —
but to see you eat. Our knife and fork drop instinctively,
and we feel that we have swallowed our latest morsel.
Others again show their genius, as we have said, in knock-
ing the moment you have just sat down to a book. They
316
Popular Fallacies
have a peculiar compassionate sneer, with which they
" hope that they do not interrupt your studies." Though
they flutter off the next moment, to carry their impertin-
ences to the nearest student that they can call their friend,
the tone of the book is spoiled ; we shut the leaves, and,
with Dante's lovers, read no more that day. It were well if
the effect of intrusion were simply co-extensive with its
presence ; but it mars all the good hours afterwards. These
scratches in appearance leave an orifice that closes not
hastily. " It is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship,"
says worthy Bishop Taylor, "to spend it upon impertinent
people, who are, it may be, loads to their families, but can
never ease my loads." This is the secret of their gaddings,
their visits, and morning calls. They too have homes,
which are — no homes.
XIII.
THAT YOU MUST LOVE ME AND LOVE MY DOG.
" Good sir, or madam, as it may be — we most willingly
embraced the offer of your friendship. We long have
known your excellent qualities. We have wished to have
you nearer to us ; to hold you within the very innermost
fold of our heart. We can have no reserve towards a
perpon of your open and noble nature. The frankness of
your humour suits us exactly. We have been long looking
for such a friend. Quick — let us disburthen our troubles
into each other's bosom — let us make our single joys shine
by reduplication — But yap, yap, yap I what is this con-
founded cur ? he has fastened his tooth, which is none of
the bluntest, just in the fleshy part of my leg."
"It is my dog, sir. You must love him for my sake.
Here, Test— Test— Test ! "
"But he has bitten me."
"Ay, that he is apt to do, till you are better acquainted
with him. I have had him three years. He never bites
me."
Yap, yap, yap ! — " He is at it again."
"Oh, sir, you must not kick him. He does not like to
be kicked. I expect my dog to be treated with all the
respect due to myself."
317
The Essays of Elia
*' But do you always take him out with you, when you
go a iriendship-hunling ? "
*' Invariably. 'Tis the sweetest, prettiest, best-conditioned
animal. I call him my test — the touchstone by which I
try a friend. No one can properly be said to love me,
wno does not love him."
"Excuse us, dear sir — or madam aforesaid — if upon
further consideration we are obliged to decline the other-
wise invaluable offer of your friendship. We do not like
dogs."
" Mighty well, sir — you know the conditions — you may
have worse offers. Come along, Test."
The above dialogue is not so imaginary, but that, in the
intercourse of life, we have h;xd frequent occasions of
breaking off an agreeable intimacy by reason of these
canine appendages. They do not always come in the
shape of dogs; they sometimes wear the more plausible
and human character of kinsfolk, near acquaintances, my
friend's friend, his partner, his wife, or his children. We
could never yet form a friendship — not to speak of more
delicate correspondences — however much to our taste,
without the intervention of some third anomaly, some
impertinent clog affixed to the relation — the understood
dog in the proverb. The good things of hfe are not to be
had singly, but come to us with a mixture ; like a school-
boy's holiday, with a task afSxed to the tail of it. What a
delightful companion is '-^^ * * *, if he did not always
bring his tall cousin with him ! He seems to grow with
him ; like some of those double births which we remember
to have read of with such wonder and delight in the old
" Athenian Oracle," where Swift commenced author by
writing Pindaric Odes (what a beginning for him !) upon
Sir William Temple. There is the picture of the brother,
with the little brother peeping out at his shoulder; a
species of fraternity, which we have no name of kin close
enough to comprehend. When * * * * comes, poking in
his iicad and shoulder into your room, as if to feel his
entry, you think, surely you have now got him to yourself
— what a three-hours' chat we shall have ! — but ever in the
haunch of him, and before his diffident body is well dis-
closed in your apartment, appears the haunting shadow of
the cousin, over-peering his modest kinsman, and sure
to overlay the expected good talk with his insufferable
318
Popular Fallacies
procerity of stature, and uncorrespondiiig dwarfishness of
observation. Misfortunes seldom come alone. 'Tis hard
when a blessing comes accompanied. Cannot we like
Sempronia, without sitting down to chess with her eternal
brother? or know Sulpicia, without knowing all the round
of her card-playing relations ? must my friend's brethren of
necessity be mine also ? must we be hand and glove with
Dick Selby the parson, or Jack Selby the calico-printer,
because W. S., who is neither, but a ripe wit and a critic,
has ihe misfortune to claim a common parentage with
them ? Let him lay down his brothers ; and 'tis odds but
we will cast him in a pair of ours (we have a superflux) to
balance the concession. Let F. H. lay down his garrulous
uncle; and Honorius dismiss his vapid wife, and super-
fluous establishment of six boys : things between boy and
manhood — too ripe for play, too raw for conversation —
that come in, impudently staring their father's old friend
out of countenance ; and will neither aid, nor let alone,
the conference : that we may once more meet upon equal
terms, as we were wont to do in the disengaged state of
bachelorhood.
It is well if your friend, or mistress, be content with
these canicular probations. Few young ladies but in this
sense keep a dog. But when Rutilia hounds at you her
tiger aunt; or Ruspina expects you to cherish and fondle
her viper sister, whom she has preposterously taken into
her bosom, to try stinging conclusions upon your
constancy; they must not complain if the house be rather
thin of suitors. Scylla must have broken off many
excellent matches in her time, if she insisted upon all,
that loved her, loving her dogs al^o.
An excellent story to this moral is told of Merry, of
Delia Cruscan memory. In tender youth, he loved and
courted a modest appanage to the Opera, in truth a
dancer, who had won him by the artless contrast between
her manners and situation. She seemed to him a native
violet, that had been transplanted by some rude accident
into that exotic and artificial hotbed. Nor, in truth, was
she less genuine and sincere than she appeared to him.
He wooed and won this flower. Only for appearance'
sake, and for due honour to the bride's relations, she craved
that she might have the attendance of her friends and
kindred at the approaching solemnity. The request was
319
The Essays of Elia
too amiable not to be conceded : and in this solicitude for
conciliating the good-will of mere relations, he found a
presage of her superior attentions to himself, when the
golden shaft should have " killed the flock of all affections
else." The morning came : and at the Star and Garter,
Richmond — the place appointed for the breakfasting —
accompanied with one English friend, he impatiently
awaited what reinforcements the bride should bring to
grace the ceremony. A rich muster she had made. They
came in six coaches — the whole corps du ballet — French,
Italian, men and women. Monsieur De B., the famous
pirotietter of the day, led his fair spouse, but craggy, from
the banks of the Seine. The Prima Donna had sent her
excuse. But the first and second Buffa were there ; and
Signor Sc — , and Signora Ch — , and Madame V — , with
a countless cavalcade besides of chorusers, figurantes, at
the sight of whom Merry afterwards declared, that " then
for the first time it struck him seriously that he was about
to marry — a dancer." But there was no help for it.
Besides, it was her day ; these were, in fact, her friends
and kinsfolk. The assemblage, though wliimsical, was all
very natural. But when the bride — handing out of the
last coach a still more extraordinary figure than the rest —
presented to him as her father — the gentleman that was to
give her away — no less a person than Signor Delpini him-
self— with a sort of pride, as much as to say, See what I
have brought to do us honour ! — the thought of so extra-
ordinary a paternity quite overcame him ; and slipping
away under some pretence from the bride and her motley
adherents, poor Merry took horse from the back yard to
the nearest sea-coast, from which, shipping himself to
America, he shortly after consoled himself with a more
congenial match in the person of Miss Brunton ; relieved
from his intended clown father, and a bevy of painted
Buffas for bridemaids.
XIV.
THAT WE SHOULD RISE WITH THE LARK.
At what precise minute that little airy musician doffs his
night gear, and prepares to tune up his unseasonable
matins, we are not naturalists enough to determine. But
Popular Fallacies
for a mere human gentleman — that has no orchestra busi-
ness to call him from his warm bed to such preposterous
exercises — we take ten, or half after ten (eleven, of course,
during this Christmas solstice), to be the very earliest
hour, at which he can begin to think of abandoning his
pillow. To think of it, we say ; for to do it in earnest,
requires another half-hour's good consideration. Not but
there are pretty sun-risings, as we are told, and such like
gawds, abroad in the world, in summer time especially,
some hours before what we have assigned ; which a gentle-
man may see, as they say, only forgetting up. But, having
been tempted once or twice, in earlier life, to assist at those
ceremonies, we confess our curiosity abated. We are no
longer ambitious of being the sun's courtiers, to attend at
his morning levees. We hold the good hours of the dawn
too sacred to waste them upon such observances ; which
have in them, besides, something Pagan and Persic. To
say truth, we never anticipated our usual hour, or got up
with the sun (as 'tis called), to go a journey, or upon a
foolish whole day's pleasuring, but we suffered for it all
the long hours after in listlessness and headaches ; Nature
herself sufficiently declaring her sense of our presumption
in aspiring to regulate our frail waking courses by the
measures of that celestial and sleepless traveller. We deny
not that there is something sprightly and vigorous, at the
outset especially, in these break-of-day excursions. It is
flattering to get the start of a lazy world ; to conquer death
by proxy in his image. But the seeds of sleep and
mortality are in us ; and we pay usually in strange qualms
before night falls, the penalty of the unnatural inversion.
Therefore, while the busy part of mankind are fast huddling
on their clothes, are already up and about their occupations,
content to have swallowed their sleep by wholesale; we
choose to linger a-bed, and digest our dreams. It is the
very time to recombine the wandering images, which night
in a confused mass presented ; to snatch them from forget-
fulness ; to shape, and mould them. Some people have no
good of their dreams. Like fast feeders, they gulp them
too grossly, to taste them cur.ously. We love to chew the
cud of a foregone vision ; to collect the scattered rays of a
brighter phantasm, or act over again, with fii;mer nerves,
the sadder nocturnal tragedies; to drag into day-light a
struggling and half-vanishing night-mare ; to handle and
X 321
The Essays of Elia
examine the terrors, or the airy solaces. We have too
much respect for these spiritual communications, to let
them go so lightly. We are not so stupid, or so careless,
as that Imperial forgetter of his dreams, that we should
need a seer to remind us of the form of them. They seem
to us to have as much significance as our waking concerns ;
or rather to import us more nearly, as more nearly we
approach by years to the shadowy world, whither we are
hastening. We have shaken hands with the world's business ;
we have done with it ; we have discharged ourself of it.
Why should we get up ? we have neither suit to solicit, nor
affairs to manage. The drama has shut in upon us at the
fourth act. We have nothing here to expect, but in a short
time a sick bed, and a dismissal. We delight to anticipate
death by such shadows as night affords. We are already
half acquainted with ghosts. We were never much in the
world. Disappointment early struck a dark veil between
us and its dazzling illusions. Our spirits showed grey before
our hairs. The mighty changes of the world already appear
as but the vain stuff out of which dramas are composed.
We have asked no more of life than what the mimic images
in play-houses present us with. Even those types have
waxed fainter. Our clock appears to have struck. We are
SUPERANNUATED. In this dearth of mundane satisfaction,
we contract politic alliances with shadows. It is good to
have friends at court. The abstracted media of dreams
seem no ill introduction to that spiritual presence, upon
which, in no long time, we expect to be thrown. We are
trying to know a little of the usages of that colony ; to learn
the language, and the faces we shall meet with there, that
we may be the less awkward at our first coming among
them. We willingly call a phantom our fellow, as knowing
we shall soon be of their dark companionship. Therefore,
we cherish dreams. We try to spell in them the alphabet
of the invisible world ; and think we know already, how it
shall be with us. Those uncouth shapes, which, while we
clung to tiesh and blood, affrighted us, have become
familiar. We feel attenuated into their meagre essences,
and have given the hand of half-way approach to incorporeal
being. We once thought life to be something; but it has
unaccountably fallen from us before its time. Therefore
we choose to dally with visions. The sun has no purposes
of ours to light us to. Why should we get up ?
322
Popular Fallacies
XV.
THAT WE SHOULD LIE DOWN WITH THE LAMB.
We could never quite understand the philosophy of this
arrangement, or the wisdom of our ancestors in sending us
for instruction to these woolly bedfellows. A sheep, when
it is dark, has nothing to do but to shut his silly eyes, and
sleep if he can. Man found out long sixes. — Hail candle-
light! without disparagement to sun or moon, the kindliest
luminary of the three — if we may not rather style thee their
radiant deputy, mild viceroy of the moon! — We love to
read, talk, sit silent, eat, drink, sleep, by candle-light. They
are everybody's sun and moon. This is our peculiar and
household planet. Wanting it, what savage unsocial nights
must our ancestors have spent, wintering in caves and
unillumined fastnesses ! They must have lain about and
grumbled at one another in the dark. What repartees
could have passed, when you must have felt about for a
smile, and handled a neighbour's cheek to be sure that he
understood it ? This accounts for the seriousness of the
elder poetry. It has a sombre cast (try Hesiod or Ossian),
derived from the tradition of those unlantern'd nights.
Jokes came in with candles. We wonder how they saw to
pick up a pin, if they had any. How did they sup? what
a melange of chance carving they must have made of it ! —
here one had got the leg of a goat, when he wanted a horse's
shoulder — there another had dipt his scooped palm in a
kid-skin of wild honey, when he meditated right mare's
milk. There is neither good eating nor drinking in fresco.
Who, even in these civilised times, has never experienced
this, when at some economic table he has commenced din-
ing after dusk, and waited for the flavour till the lights
came? The senses absolutely give and take reciprocally.
Can you tell pork from veal in the dark ? or distinguish
Sherris from pure Malaga ? Take away the candle from
the smoking man ; by the glimmering of the left ashes, he
knows that he is still smoking, but he knows it only by an
inference ; till the restored light, coming in aid of the
olfactories, reveals to both senses the full aroma. Then how
he redoubles his puffs ! how he burnishes ! — There is ab-
solutely no such thing as reading, but by a candle. We
have tried the affectation of a book at noon-day in gardens,
323
The Essays of Elia
and in sultry arbours; but it was labour thrown away.
Those gay motes in the beam come about you, hovering
and teasing, like many coquettes, that will have you all to
their self, and are jealous of your abstractions. By the
midnight taper, the writer digests his meditations. By the
same light, we must approach to their perusal, if we would
catch the flame, the odour. It is a mockery, all that is
reported of the influential Phoebus. No true poem ever
owed its birth to the sun's light. They are abstracted
works —
" Things that were born, when none but the still night,
And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes."
Marry, daylight — daylight might furnish the images, the
crude material ; but for the fine shapings, the true turning
and filing (as mine author hath it), they must be content to
hold their inspiration of the candle. The mild internal
light, that reveals them, like fires on the domestic hearth,
goes out in the sun-shine. Night and silence call out the
starry fancies. Milton's Morning Hymn in Paradise, we
would hold a good wager, was penned at midnight; and
Taylor's rich description of a sun-rise smells decidedly of
the taper. Even ourselves, in these our humbler lucubra-
tions, tune our best measured cadences (Prose has her
cadences) not unfrequently to the charm of the drowsier
watchman, "blessing the doors;" or the wild sweeps of
wind at midnight. Even now a loftier speculation than we
have yet attempted, courts our endeavours. We would
indite something about the Solar System. — Betty, bring the
candles.
XVI.
THAT A SULKV TEMPER IS A MISFORTUNE.
We grant that it is, and a very serious one — to a man's
friends, and to all that have to do with him ; but whether
the condition of the man himself is so much to be deplored
may admit of a question. We can speak a little to it, being
ourself but lately recovered — we whisper it in confidence,
reader — out of a long and desperate fit of the sullen. Was
the cure ;i blessing ? The conviction which wrought it,
came too clearly to leave a scruple of the fanciful injuries —
for they were mere fancies — which had provoked the
324
Popular Fallacies
humour. But the humour itself was too self-pleasing, while
it lasted — we know how bare we lay ourself in the con-
fession— to be abandoned all at once with the grounds of
it. We still brood over wrongs which we know to have
been imaginary ; and for our old acquaintance, N , whom
we find to be a truer friend than we took him for, we sub-
stitute some phantom — a Caius or Titius— as like him as
we dare to form it, to wreak our yet unsatisfied resentments
on. It is mortifying to fall at once from the pinnacle of
neglect ; to forego the idea of having been ill-used and
contumaciously treated by an old friend. The first thing
to aggrandise a man in his own conceit, is to conceive of
himself as neglected. There let him fix if he can. To un-
deceive him is to deprive him of the most tickling morsel
within the range of self-complacency. No flattery can
come near it. Happy is he who suspects his friend of an
injustice ; but supremely blest, who thinks all his friends
in a conspiracy to depress and undervalue him. There is a
pleasure (we sing not to the profane) far beyond the reach of
all that the world counts joy — a deep, enduring satisfaction
in the depths, where the superficial seek it not, of discon-
tent. Were we to recite one half of this mystery, — which
we were let into by our late dissatisfaction, all the world
would be in love with disrespect ; we should wear a slight for
a bracelet, and neglects and contumacies would be the only
matter for courtship. Unlike to that mysterious book in
the Apocalypse, the study of this mystery is unpalatable
only in the commencement. The first sting of a suspicion
is grievous ; but wait — out of that wound, which to flesh
and blood seemed so difficult, there is balm and honey
to be extracted. Your friend passed you on such or
such a day — having in his company one that you conceived
worse than ambiguously disposed towards you, — passed you
in the street without notice. To be sure he is something
short-sighted ; and it was in your power to have accosted
him. But facts and sane inferences are trifles to a true
adept in the science of dissatisfaction. He must have
seen you ; and S , who was with him, must have been
the cause of the contempt. It galls you, and well it may.
But have patience. Go home, and make the worst of it,
and you are a made man from this time. Shut yourself up,
and — rejecting, as an enemy to your peace, every whisper-
ing suggestion that but insinuates there may be a mistake
325
The Essays of Elia
— reflect seriously upon the many lesser instances which
you 'nad begun to perceive, in proof of your friend's dis-
affection towards you. None of them singly was much
to the purpose, but the aggregate weight is positive; and
you have this last affront to clench them. Thus far the
process is anything but agreeable. But now to your relief
comes in the comparative faculty. You conjure up all the
kind feelings you have had for your friend; what you have
been to him, and what you would have been to him, if he
would have suffered you ; how you defended him in this or
that place ; and his good name— his literary reputation, and
so forth, was always dearer to you than your own ! Your
heart, spite of itself, yearns towards him. You could weep
tears of blood but for a restraining pride. How say you ?
do you not yet begin to apprehend a comfort? some allay
of sweetness in the bitter waters ? Stop not here, nor
penuriously cheat yourself of your reversions. — You are on
vantage ground. Enlarge your speculations, and take in
the rest of your friends, as a spark kindles more sparks.
Was there one among them, who has not to you proved
hollow, false, slippery as water ? Begin to think that the
relation itself is inconsistent with mortality. That the very
idea of friendship, with its component parts, as honour,
fidelity, steadiness, exists but in your single bosom. Image
yourself to yourself, as the only possible friend in a world
incapable of that communion. Now the gloom thickens.
The little star of self-love twinkles, that is to encourage
you through deeper glooms than this. You are not yet at
the half point of your elevation. You are not yet, believe
me, half sulky enough. Adverting to the world in general
(as these circles in the mind will spread to infinity), reflect
with what strange injustice you have been treated in
quarters where (setting gratitude and the expectation of
friendly returns aside as chimeras) you pretended no claim
beyond justice, the naked due of all men. Think the very
idea of right and fit fled from the earth, or your breast the
solitary receptacle of it, till you have swelled yourself into
at least one hemisphere, the other being the vast Arabia
Slony of your friends and the world aforesaid. To grow
bigger every moment in your own conceit, and the world to
lessen ; to deify yourself at the expense of your species ; to
judge the world — this is the acme and supreme point of
your mystery — these the true Pleasures of Sulkiness.
326
Popular Fallacies
We profess no more of this grand secret than what ourself
experimented on one rainy afternoon in the last week,
sulking in our study. We had proceeded to the pen-
ultimate point, at which the true adept seldom stops,
where the consideration of benefit forgot is about to merge
in the meditation of general injustice — when a knock at the
door was followed by the entrance of the very friend, whose
not seeing of us in the morning (for wc will now confess the
case our own), an accidental oversight, had given rise to so
much agreeable generalisation ! To mortify us still more,
and take down the whole flattering superstructure which
pride had piled upon neglect, he had brought in his hand
the identical S , in whose favour we had suspected
him of the contumacy. Asservations were needless, where
the frank manner of them both was convictive of the in-
jurious nature of the suspicion. We fancied that they
perceived our embarrassment ; but were too proud, or
something else, to confess to the secret of it. We had
been but too lately in the condition of the noble patient
in Argos : —
Qui se credebat miros audire traga^dos,
In vacuo faetus sessor plausorque iheatro—
and could have exclaimed with equal reason against the
friendly hands that cured us —
Pol, me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis, ait ; cui sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.
THE END
yri
r K
THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORN]
Santa Barbara
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAS^
STAMPED BELOW.
U
J84
o
3 1205 00316 6954
JS^
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
A A 001 424 555 9
Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11